Chief Financial Officer

Description:

This is a build-and-scale mandate, not a steady-state finance seat. You'll be the senior financial leader across the founder's full portfolio of businesses — owning forecasting, reporting, controls, tax and treasury, and commercial finance — while also leading a complex growth capital raise and building the financial infrastructure an SME of our ambition doesn't yet have at scale. The role demands an unusually close, trust-based working relationship with the founder: you will be his principal financial partner across all his business interests and a committed advocate for the strategic direction he sets, with direct exposure to incoming institutional investors.

WHAT YOU'LL OWN

Financial planning & analysis Own the consolidated forecast and budgeting cycle across all GCC entities. Build a probability-weighted view of contracted revenue, pipeline and market opportunity by country and product line. High-frequency reporting to the founder and shareholders is a core, recurring deliverable.

Audit, controls & reporting Lead the audit of historical financials and the ongoing annual cycle. Establish IFRS-compliant consolidated reporting across the group, including any pre-transaction holdco/opco structure. Build the control environment expected of an investor-backed business — hands-on, not delegated.

Working capital & cash management Own working capital, with particular focus on the receivables cycle inherent to GCC government contracting — long DSOs, performance retentions, milestone billing. Build the cash flow forecasting discipline a fast-growing multi-country operation needs. This is an area we know needs strengthening, and an early, visible win for the right candidate.

Tax & treasury across jurisdictions Manage UAE corporate tax and VAT, KSA tax and Zakat, and transfer pricing across any IP holding structure. Oversee banking and treasury across GCC markets — scope that will only grow as we expand into new jurisdictions.

Commercial finance partnership Partner with the founder and country leads on contract pricing, margin analysis by revenue type, and the unit economics of our recurring revenue base. Your input on backlog and pipeline quality will directly shape the investment narrative.

Team build Recruit and lead a lean, high-calibre finance function appropriate to a growing SME — including controllers and finance leads in new markets as scale demands. You'll have direct input into building your own team and other senior hires across the group.

Portfolio oversight Take financial oversight of the founder's other business interests outside Zenith Group, applying the same forecasting, reporting and commercial-finance discipline across them, and contributing directly to their strategic growth alongside your core Zenith Group remit.

Capital raise leadership Lead the financial workstream of the group's growth capital raise end-to-end: the five-year financial model, scenario analysis, valuation support, due diligence, investor Q&A, and deal negotiation alongside the founder and external advisors. You will be the company's primary financial counterpart to investors throughout the process — a defining, high-visibility priority within the broader CFO mandate.

WHO YOU ARE

A qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CPA or equivalent) with 8+ years of progressive finance experience, including time at CFO, deputy CFO or finance director level, with full ownership of forecasting, controls, tax/treasury and commercial finance in a multi-entity environment. You've operated comfortably at SME scale — where you build the function rather than inherit one — and are equally credible stepping across distinct business interests beyond a single core entity. You've built or upgraded finance functions in a high-growth business, including audit and IFRS consolidation across multiple entities. You've also led a fundraise, sale or institutional capital event end-to-end on the company side — not just supported one — and can step into that immediately alongside the core CFO remit. You know the GCC operating environment: UAE corporate tax, KSA tax and Zakat, VAT, and the working capital realities of B2G contracting.

Sector exposure to technology, SaaS, govtech, defence or security is a strong plus.

You operate with an investor-ready presence and can defend your numbers under sustained scrutiny. You're comfortable with incomplete information in a founder-led environment, but bring institutional structure and discipline to it. Critically, you operate as a true partner to the founder — closely aligned with and a strong advocate for his strategic direction, translating vision into financial reality rather than working at arm's length from it. High integrity, commercial curiosity, and the resilience to run a capital raise alongside business-as-usual. Fluent English; Arabic is a meaningful advantage but not required.