Fractional Finance Leader

Finance Leader

About us

The Lumen Collective is an ICAEW-regulated fractional finance practice. We place finance leaders into businesses that need senior financial direction without a full-time hire. We back our people with technology and a bench of specialists so they spend their time with the client and carry less of the load.

We are building a panel of Finance Leaders to take on client engagements.

The role

The heart of this role is the relationship with the person at the top. You partner with CEOs, founders and owners of SMEs as a finance lead they trust, someone they can think out loud with and rely on for a straight answer. That partnership is the job.

From there you own the relationships with key stakeholder, such as the management team, lenders and advisers. You bring the financial story together so everyone is working from the same numbers.

Beyond that the work varies by client. Typical briefs include planning and forecasting, management and board reporting, cash and treasury, fundraising and deal support, and putting in the systems and controls a growing business needs. Some engagements are a few days a month over a long period. Others are short and defined, or more intensive interim cover. Some of those shorter assignments are transaction-led and involve corporate finance work.

Expect a commitment of one to two days per week, though this varies with the client assignment. Some briefs need less, and the more intensive projects need more. Here is how assignments work in practice.

• Assignments are offered, never assigned and you take only the ones that suit your capacity and interests.
• Nothing starts until everyone is happy. You meet the client before committing, sometimes more than once and the engagement only begins when you, the client and TLC all agree it is the right fit.
• We aim to give you a few weeks' notice before a placement starts wherever we can.
• The shape of the week is agreed with the client. A day a week might be one full day or shorter blocks spread across the week, whatever works for you both.
• Assignment lengths vary with the client's needs. Our goal is to be a long-term partner to the business and its leaders, so most engagements are built to last.
• Training is provided to bring you up to speed with the latest technology we use and your development is supported as the practice grows.
• We are industry agnostic, what matters is the leader, not the sector.

The role is remote. Meeting clients in-person would be encouraged.

Who we are looking for

Above all, someone who builds trust with founders and owners and can hold the room with a board. The technical strength sits underneath that.

• A track record of partnering closely with CEOs, founders, owners and management teams.
• Confident owning board reporting and conversations with investors, lenders and other external stakeholders.
• A qualified accountant (ICAEW, ACCA or CIMA) or someone with equivalent senior finance experience.
• Senior finance leadership experience, ideally across SMEs and scaleups.
• Corporate finance experience is welcome, since some of the shorter assignments are transaction-led.
• Strong on planning, reporting, cash and treasury and systems.
• Comfortable using technology as part of how you deliver.

How we make it easier

We take the parts of fractional work that slow people down and carry them for you, so your time goes where it counts.

• We find and qualify the projects. You step into work that is already scoped and ready, not a pipeline you have to build yourself.
• Our technology does the heavy lifting. Chasq and our finance agents take on the data work, the reconciliations, the first drafts of reporting and the analysis. You move faster and put your time where your judgement matters.
• You have a full practice behind you. TLC is ICAEW-regulated, with specialists in tax, accounting, treasury, financial modelling and deal support a message away. You are never out on your own on something beyond your core. ‍
• We carry the compliance load. Client onboarding, anti-money laundering checks and the regulated side of the engagement sit with us. You get a clean brief and the standing of a regulated practice behind your name.
• You are covered. Your work on TLC engagements is covered by the practice's professional indemnity insurance.
• The admin is ours, the relationship is yours. We handle engagement terms, billing and the back office. You own the client.

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When you join we set all of this out in a simple agreement, so you know exactly where you stand.