Goodman Masson
Deputy Finance Director
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Deputy Finance Director
Reports to: Group Finance Director
Location: London
Employment type: Contract 12 months - day rate outside IR35
Level: Senior finance leadership
About the Role
The Deputy Finance Director / Senior Finance Manager will be a trusted senior adviser to the Group Finance Director, providing broad leadership across finance, accounting, commercial analysis, and strategic projects. The role will combine hands-on delivery with high-quality judgement: deputising for the Finance Director when required, driving outstanding actions to completion, interpreting complex financial information, and presenting clear recommendations for decision. The successful candidate will operate across the full finance agenda rather than within a narrow specialism. They will connect financial control, planning, debt and liquidity, commercial decision support, and project execution, while maintaining a clear view of priorities, risks, dependencies, and deadlines.
Responsibilities
- Deputise for the Group Finance Director: represent the Group Finance Director in relevant meetings, provide continuity of leadership, and make or escalate decisions within agreed authority.
- Drive delivery: maintain oversight of key finance commitments, establish clear owners and deadlines, challenge slippage, and ensure outstanding deliverables are completed to the required standard.
- Provide decision support: interpret complex financial, commercial, and accounting information, identify material issues, and present concise options, recommendations, and implications to the Finance Director.
- Oversight on financial planning: ensuring team progress on coordinating budgets, forecasts, long-range plans, and scenario analysis, ensuring assumptions are robust, outputs are integrated, and risks and opportunities are transparent.
- Oversee financial performance: review management reporting, cash flow, profitability, capital expenditure, and key performance indicators; investigate variances and drive corrective action.
- Support debt and treasury matters: analyse debt structures, interest costs, liquidity, refinancing requirements, and covenant headroom; coordinate inputs from internal teams, lenders, and advisers.
- Maintain accounting quality: provide oversight and challenge across management and statutory reporting, audit, tax, controls, policies, and significant or judgemental accounting matters.
- Project-manage cross-functional matters: where necessary, lead finance, commercial, and accounting workstreams, including transactions, refinancing, systems, restructuring, investment cases, and process improvement.
- Prepare senior-level materials: produce and review clear papers, presentations, and briefing notes for the Finance Director, executive leadership, Board, committees, lenders, and other stakeholders.
- Partner with the business: work constructively with commercial, operational, legal, tax, and other functions, combining support with appropriate challenge and financial discipline.
- Improve finance effectiveness: simplify processes, strengthen controls and management information, clarify accountabilities, and raise the standard and pace of execution across the function.
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Qualifications
- Recognised professional accountancy qualification, such as ACA, ACCA, CIMA, ICAS, or equivalent. Ideally ACA.
- Substantial post-qualification experience in a broad senior finance role, with credible exposure to both controllership and commercial or strategic finance.
- Strong understanding of financial statements, accounting principles, management reporting, forecasting, cash flow, and business planning.
- Demonstrable ability to interpret debt documentation, funding structures, covenant calculations, liquidity forecasts, and interest-rate implications.
- Experience leading complex, multi-stakeholder projects and delivering against demanding and sometimes competing deadlines.
- Track record of advising senior executives, exercising sound judgement, and translating detailed analysis into clear decisions or recommendations.
- Strong financial modelling and analytical capability, supported by strong Excel and PowerPoint skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to prepare concise, senior-level papers and present complex matters clearly.
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Required Skills
- Experience in a capital-intensive, leveraged infrastructure, real estate, or similarly complex international business.
- Exposure to refinancing, capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, investment appraisal, or major capital programmes.
- Experience working with Boards, lenders, auditors, tax advisers, legal counsel, and other external stakeholders.
- Experience improving finance processes, systems, controls, and reporting in a changing or fast-paced environment.
- Leadership or development of finance professionals, whether through direct line management or matrix teams.
Preferred Skills
- Ownership and follow-through: personally drives actions to completion and does not allow ambiguity or delay to persist.
- Commercial judgement: balances technical correctness, economic value, risk, and practicality.
- Executive presence: can credibly represent the Group Finance Director and communicate with senior internal and external stakeholders.
- Structured thinking: rapidly identifies the central issue, tests assumptions, and separates material matters from detail.
- Constructive challenge: asks difficult questions professionally, holds stakeholders accountable, and escalates at the right time.
- Adaptability: moves confidently between detailed accounting matters, strategic analysis, and programme delivery.
- Integrity and discretion: handles sensitive information appropriately and maintains high professional standards.
- Clear communication: presents concise conclusions, choices, risks, and recommendations rather than analysis without a point of view.
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