Group Financial Controller - 12 Month FTC

Robertson Bell is exclusively partnering with Barnardo's to recruit a Group Financial Controller on a 12-month fixed-term contract. This is a significant senior finance leadership opportunity to join a complex and well-established organisation at an important point in its development, leading a large finance team and driving transformation across processes and systems.

Following changes to the Finance leadership structure, the Group Financial Controller will provide additional senior leadership capacity during a period of significant organisational development and change. Reporting directly to the CFO, you will act as a senior operational deputy, providing leadership across financial control, finance operations, treasury management, finance systems, finance transformation and legacy operations. You will lead a team of up to 7 directly, with up to 60 indirect reports, and will play a key role in strengthening financial governance, operational performance and service delivery.

Barnardo's is a leading UK charity working to support children, young people and families. Its Finance function is strengthening to support the organisation's strategy through financial stewardship, operational excellence and transformation, with a focus on improving processes and controls, modernising systems and reporting, embedding digital solutions and developing organisational capability.

The key duties of the Group Financial Controller are:

• Act as the senior operational deputy to the CFO, representing Finance at senior management meetings and providing senior leadership across the function.
• Lead key Finance transformation priorities, driving significant improvements across systems, processes, data and organisational capability.
• Act as senior sponsor for Finance systems development and optimisation, ensuring technology investments deliver measurable benefits and are accompanied by genuine process change.
• Champion automation, digital enablement and AI opportunities to reduce manual activity, strengthen controls and improve the Finance user experience.
• Support wider organisational change initiatives, ensuring Finance structures, systems and resources are aligned to future requirements.
• Provide visible and effective leadership across a large Finance function, promoting a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement and high performance.
• Provide leadership and oversight across statutory reporting, taxation, audit, technical accounting and group consolidation, maintaining strong financial governance and control.
• Oversee finance operations including transaction processing, income management, accounts payable, accounts receivable, Gift Aid and related services, driving operational excellence and improved service standards.
• Oversee treasury activities, including cash, liquidity and investments, while strengthening processes, systems and internal capability.

The successful candidate will have:

• Significant post-qualification experience in a senior finance leadership position (E), ideally operating at or close to Finance Director, Deputy CFO, Group Financial Controller or equivalent level.
• Experience leading financial control and finance operations within a large, complex organisation (E), with previous charity experience highly desirable.
• A fully qualified accountancy qualification such as ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent (E),
• Strong technical accounting experience, including statutory reporting, audit management, taxation, financial governance and controls.
• A proven track record of leading and developing high-performing teams, with the ability to coach and support permanent team members.
• Demonstrable experience delivering organisational change, service improvement and finance transformation programmes across people, processes and systems (E).
• Experience working effectively with senior stakeholders, including executive and board reporting.
• Strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to convey complex financial information clearly to senior audiences (E).
• A pragmatic, resilient, collaborative and emotionally intelligent approach, with the ability to build trust quickly and integrate effectively into an established team
• A proactive and solutions-focused mindset, with the ability to challenge constructively, identify opportunities for improvement and deliver against complex priorities.

This is a 12-month fixed-term opportunity paying up to £92,892 per annum and will be largely home-based with occasional days in the London office.

Applications close on Tuesday 15th September, with fir