Soma Capital Portfolio Jobs

CFO and Controller, Africa

Flutterwave

Flutterwave

Accounting & Finance
Lekki, Nigeria
Posted on Sep 12, 2024

Flutterwave was founded on the principle that every African must be able to participate and thrive in the global economy. To achieve this objective, we have built a trusted payment infrastructure that allows consumers and businesses (African and International) to make and receive payments in a convenient borderless manner.

The Role: Flutterwave is seeking an Africa CFO & Controller who will be accountable for the firm's finance function on the continent. This role combines strategic financial leadership with hands-on financial management and control, in compliance with regulatory requirements and optimizing the business model and strategic execution. Africa CFO will play a critical role in building and maintaining a relationship with external stakeholders on the continent - Regulators, the Central Bank, banking, and other partners in countries across the continent, The Africa CFO will also closely partner with the Global FP&A function to measure the performance of various business units and provide input into planning and forecasting, grounded in numbers and analytics. Given Flutterwave's origin and strong presence on the continent, Africa CFO is the prominent partner for the CFO, CEO, and firm’s leadership team. This leader will have an opportunity to transform the Finance function (People, Processes, and Infrastructure) towards taking the company towards an IPO and post-IPO phase

This role reports to the Global CFO with a matrix reporting line to the Chief Accounting Officer, and partners closely with the CEO and other key company leaders.

Roles and responsibilities, include but are not limited to

  • Relationship with stakeholders: Opportunity to interact with regulators, banking partners, and other stakeholders in the continent across 30+ countries. Convey the firm’s commitment and execute towards maintaining the highest standards for financial reporting and accounting standards compliance
  • Data Integration: Build best-in-class record-to-report processes, in partnership with the Chief Accounting Officer, that scales with the business, and assures accuracy, completeness, and timeliness. Opportunity to institute modern finance infrastructure that minimizes manual work and creates capacity for value-added analytics working with the FP&A organization
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Build engagement models with other departments such as sales, procurement, engineering, operations and product to align the financial processes with the business model of the firm (such as transfer pricing, revenue recognition, sales incentives, partner agreements) to integrate financial insights into decision-making processes across the organization
  • Optimize financial resources: Enhance and re-design, where appropriate, firms processes to deploy financial resources that facilitates the optimal business execution. This includes legal entity structures, transfer pricing, capital optimization, working capital and cash management
  • Strategic Alignment: Design and align financial performance management and planning activities with the strategic objectives of the organization and collaborate with business and support units to ensure that financial planning supports overall corporate goals

What your first year might look like (Note: this is not a comprehensive list)

  • Build and enhance relationship with investors, regulators, banking partners and provide leadership and support to the teams on the continent
  • Build a high-impact team that can grow their skills and experience as the company grows and expands globally. Enhance the current organization structure to unleash the potential of the current team members towards their greatest strength
  • Re-design the current financial reporting processes by making it scalable, transparent and traceable to facilitate timely and granular closing of books and performance management across Treasury, Controller and Tax processes and partnering very closely with finance operations
  • Build a modern finance infrastructure by partnering with global finance function leads (Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer) that can stand up to global audits and, more importantly, instills confidence with business partners and external stakeholders

Skills needed to succeed in this role:

  • 15 - 20 years in accounting and finance, with a significant portion in a leadership role overseeing global or multinational finance operations. Experience in the fintech, payments, or technology industry is highly desirable.
  • Strong proficiency in accounting principles, financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting, and analysis
  • CPA certification strongly preferred
  • Prior experience leading and managing a global finance team
  • Proven ability to drive process improvements, automation, and operational efficiencies
  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to synthesize complex financial data and present insights to senior leadership
  • Experience in leading and managing a team of finance professionals
  • A bachelor's degree in a relevant field
  • Excellent communication and presentation skills
  • Ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams and stakeholders
  • Willingness to travel as needed (10-25%)

What excites us

  • Experience in a fast-paced, high-growth Financial technology company (especially in payments) is highly preferred
  • Proficiency in data analysis tools and technologies, such as SQL, Python, or other programming languages
  • Experience in taking companies public in the African and / or international markets
  • Ability to maintain a sense of humor in any situation
  • Believes in solving problems from first principles and has a strong bias towards action
  • Passion for new technology and/or emerging markets' potential
  • Experience taking a company public

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