Finance Director, Ark Programmes

About The Role

We are looking for a strategic finance professional to join the senior leadership team of Ark UK Programmes and support the sustainable growth and development of our traded programmes. This is an exciting opportunity for someone with strong commercial experience who is passionate about our mission and motivated by how different funding models and blended finance can enable us to create social impact at scale.

Within this role you will work closely with the Group Finance team, which is responsible for all the group financial processing and reporting, and supported by a group financial controller. We are looking for someone who will bring a firm understanding of the drivers of income and expenditure to support effective decision making across our programmes, ensuring that financial sustainability and mission impact are considered together and influence every part of the organisational strategy.

The Finance Director will own all the financial modelling underpinning this, managing forecasting and budgeting, and providing rapid and reliable assessments of the financial impact of business decisions.

This role requires a curious and commercially minded approach, using a strong grasp of the economics of our ventures to identify risks and opportunities and deepen organisational understanding of key metrics such as subscription renewals. Working closely with the Group Finance team, the Finance Director will ensure management reports provide an accurate view of performance and will oversee spend and income risks, ensuring corrective action is taken where needed.

The role will also work closely with the Managing Director to develop new ventures, ensuring their underlying economics are sound.

Reporting directly into the Managing Director of Ark UK Programmes, this role will also have dotted line reporting into the Group CFO who oversees all Ark’s financial activity, to ensure consistency and management of risk throughout the Ark Group.

The Finance Director will report into Managing Director, Ark UK Programmes. This role is currently operating hybrid working in our West London Office on a permanent basis working full time.

1st round interviews will be taking place in person on Wednesday 21st October 2026 with 2nd round interviews taking place in person w/c 2nd November 2026.

• The financial performance of Ark UK Programmes, highlighting risks and issues to the Managing Director to ensure effective commercial decisions are promptly made
• Developing the strategic plans for Ark UK Programmes including forecasting and budgeting
• Developing a fully auditable, flexible financial model able to provide rapid and reliable answers about the impact of different decisions on the financial performance
• Working with the Managing Director and product strategy team on developing new ventures, conducting robust financial analysis to support decision making and fundraising applications
• Working with the Group Finance Business Partner responsible for Ark UK Programmes to obtain relevant and accurate monthly Management Accounts in a format that supports sound financial management
• Present Management Accounts to the Ark UK Programmes senior leadership team
• Responsible for compiling and presenting the quarterly report to the AC+ Programme Board
• Work with the Group FD, FC and group finance team in making sure financial processes are efficient, processing is accurate, and that we make the most of the use of available technology
• Work with the Managing Director of Ark UK Programmes to develop a fully auditable flexible financial model able to be interrogated to provide financial insights into the impact of different decisions on the financial performance and long-term sustainability of the ventures, and to…