BlockFraction AI
Chief Financial Officer
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Job Description
To run the seed round from preparation through to close, to build and defend the financial model in institutional diligence, and then to build the finance and regulatory capital function of a regulated custodian.
The company's own internal planning had previously placed a Chief Financial Officer at Series A. That has been brought forward deliberately, because this hire is expected to run the raise rather than to arrive after it. This changes the profile substantially: the priority is a fundraiser who can also close the books, not a controller who will later learn to fundraise.
Reporting and Scope
- Reports to the founder and chief executive.
- Executive committee member.
- Owns the board pack and attends every board meeting.
Qualifications Required
- A qualified accountant: ACA, ACCA, CIMA, or Certified Public Accountant. This is close to non-negotiable, since investors, auditors, and regulators all use the qualification as a first pass credibility filter.
- A degree in finance, economics, accounting, or a comparably quantitative discipline.
- Financial modelling capability at a level where the candidate personally builds and defends the model rather than commissioning it from someone else.
Strongly preferred
- Chartered Financial Analyst charter or an equivalent valuation credential. Directly relevant here, because the company's own product is a valuation engine and a Chief Financial Officer who understands valuation methodology can interrogate it rather than simply accept its output.
- Prior status as an approved person: an FCA Senior Manager Function holder, or a DFSA Authorised Individual in the Finance Officer function. A candidate who has held an approval before is considerably faster to approve again.
- Working knowledge of the applicable capital adequacy regime, being the United Kingdom Investment Firms Prudential Regime or the DFSA Prudential Investment Business Module, together with client asset rules under CASS or the DFSA client money and safe custody provisions.
Explicitly not required
- Big Four partner track.
- A prior Chief Financial Officer title, provided the candidate has held a finance director or vice president of finance role in a regulated firm and has run a raise.
Experience
Approximately 15 or more years post qualification, including at least 5 years at finance director level or above in a regulated financial services environment.
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The single non-negotiable.
- The candidate must have personally run at least one institutional equity raise from preparation through to close, of 10 million or more in any major currency, and must be able to name the round, the lead investor, and their own specific contribution to it. This is the primary thing being bought. Please establish it on the first call and end the call if it is absent.
Required, at least four of the following six.
- Financial control in a regulated financial services firm, carrying the regulatory reporting obligation personally.
- Regulatory capital management: calculating, monitoring, and reporting capital adequacy. The company will carry locked balance sheet capital that scales with assets under management, and errors here are existential rather than cosmetic.
- Building and defending a financial model in institutional diligence, where it was taken apart line by line by someone whose job was to find the error in it.
- Audit ownership: appointing auditors, running the audit, and closing the findings.
- Fund structuring or fund administration exposure. The company's plan contemplates an offshore vehicle with a tokenised share class to fund trading inventory non-dilutive at a later stage.
- Mergers and acquisitions, buy side or sell side, with at least one completed transaction.
Principal Responsibilities
- Fundraising, which is 50 to 60 percent of the role for the first nine months
- Own the raise end to end: target list, outreach sequencing, pipeline management, and close.
- Build and own the financial model and the data room.
- Own the use of funds narrative and its reconciliation to the operating plan, including the distinction between consumed spend and regulatory capital held as locked float, which is a distinction investors will probe.
- Model both regulatory sequencing options and produce the recommendation to the board.
- Negotiate the term sheet alongside the founder and counsel.
- Own investor relations after close: reporting cadence, board pack, and the update discipline that makes the Series A easier to raise.
Salary Package
- Dubai: 120,000 plus USD free of income tax
- UK: 120,000 to 150,000 GBP
- Annual bonus: 25 to 40 percent of base
- Equity: 1.0 to 2.0 percent, fully diluted
- Vesting: 4 years, 1 year cliff
- Change of control: Double trigger acceleration, 12months
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A raise completion bonus applies, structured either as a fixed sum of 50,000 to 100,000 payable on close and scaled to the amount raised against target, or as a capped percentage of funds raised. The company will confirm the final structure with counsel before offer, since a success fee on capital raising requires careful drafting in the United Kingdom to remain outside regulated activity. The upper end of the equity range applies where the candidate is genuinely the person closing the round, and the top portion of the grant may be structured to vest on that event rather than on time.
Benefits
As for the Chief Financial Officer, with two additions that should be stated to candidates unprompted. First, the candidate will be a named insured on the directors and officers policy with an explicit regulatory liability rider. Second, the employment contract will contain written indemnification covering regulatory proceedings, subject to standard carve-outs for fraud and wilful misconduct. Candidates who have previously held a regulatory approval will ask for both, and candidates who do not ask have probably not held one.
Location
- Dubai and DIFC, on site. Preferred. Co-location with the founder during a raise is worth more in this role than in any other, and the tax free base is material.
- London (Mayfair) on site or hybrid at three to four days per week.
Equally viable under Financial Conduct Authority sequencing, and it places the candidate inside the institutional investor base where much of the fundraising work is actually done. Remote will not be considered for this role. Fundraising is a relationship activity conducted in rooms.
Candidates should be told that the likely steady state, once the company is regulated in both jurisdictions, is a Chief Financial Officer based in one with a financial controller in the other, and that substantial travel between London and Dubai is inherent to the role. A candidate uncomfortable with that is not the right candidate.
Application
Please submit all CV to: arfan@blockfractionai.com
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