Financial Director

Chief Financial Officer / Finance Director Privately Owned Retail Operations Scale-Up Up to £120K Basic Salary + Share Options + Bonus Central London Office c3-5 days in the office per week (office-centric culture)

The Opportunity:

STOIX is retained by a profitable, founder‑led business that runs physical retail operations for other brands, established, entrepreneurial and scaling fast, is hiring its first permanent CFO.

This is a genuine growth story: consistently strong cash profit for 5 to 7 years running, entirely self‑funded with no external debt to date. It's also a contrarian one. In a world obsessed with AI, automation and digital‑only retail, this business bets on real, physical shops, and that bet is paying off. Store vacancy rates are low, physical retail footfall is recovering, and this business sits right at the centre of that shift.

Circa 100 people, £10m+ turnover, trading across the UK, with US operations now live and France and Germany launching this year. It's a low‑risk, high‑headroom business: the opportunity is there for the taking, the only question is how fast it can be captured. And people don't leave; turnover here runs at roughly one departure a year.

The business is also preparing for a significant ownership transition, bringing in institutional‑style discipline, covenants, reporting rigour, real financial architecture, for the first time.

• Direct line to the CEO. No layers. You’ll be the financial conscience of the business and a genuine partner in every commercial decision.
• Build, not maintain. Systems, automation, reporting, controls: the finance function you inherit is not the one you’ll be running in 18 months. You’re the architect.
• Real commercial control. Pricing here is still genuinely open territory. You’ll shape how the business charges, structures contracts and demonstrates value to customers, not just report on the numbers after the fact.
• Real equity, real stake. Day‑one options, with a path to meaningful upside tied to the ownership transition.
• A seat at the top table. You’ll sit alongside two Managing Directors as a peer, not a back‑office function.
• Genuine autonomy. Small enough that this seat carries real impact and real control. If you want to be master of your own destiny, this is a rare shot at it.

• Qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent) with senior finance leadership experience in a fast‑moving, multi‑entity business
• Well‑suited to a Finance Director stepping into their first CFO role; title will follow capability, first‑time CFOs are genuinely welcome
• Genuinely commercial: someone who gets as excited about pricing strategy and growing the top line as they do about controls
• Track record leading a finance function through genuine scale‑up growth (2 to 5x), ideally in retail, retail operations/outsourcing, or agency‑services businesses of comparable size
• Built or significantly upgraded finance systems and automation (Xero, Net Suite or equivalent)
• Strong multi‑entity, multi‑currency consolidation and reporting, with confidence, presenting at board level
• Comfortable structuring and negotiating commercial contracts, not just reviewing them
• Led and developed a finance team, not just managed one
• The judgement to calibrate process and rigour to the size of the business: not importing heavy corporate bureaucracy, but building more than the bare minimum
• Some exposure to debt, banking relationships or external finance is useful, though you don’t need to have led a transaction
• Hands‑on, roll up sleeves, in‑person by instinct, thrives in ambiguity

This is an in‑person leadership team, expect to be in the office the majority of the week. Flexible working is a given at this level, but this isn’t a remote‑first culture.