Job Description
The Role
- The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is a key member of the Executive Committee and strategic partner to the CEO, Board, investors, and regulators.
- The CFO is responsible for safeguarding the financial strength of the business while driving sustainable growth, capital optimisation, investor confidence, and long-term value creation.
- The role provides leadership across Finance, Treasury, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Tax, Procurement, Investor Relations, Regulatory Reporting, Capital Management, and Financial Operations.
- The successful candidate will build a high-performing finance organisation that delivers timely insights, enables effective decision-making, strengthens governance, and supports the company's strategic ambitions.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership:
- Serve as a trusted adviser to the CEO, Board, and Executive Committee on all financial and strategic matters.
- Contribute to the development and execution of the Company's long-term strategy and growth plans.
- Drive enterprise-wide performance management and ensure resources are allocated to the highest-return opportunities.
- Provide strategic challenge and independent insight to support decision-making across all business functions.
- Promote a culture of accountability, transparency, execution excellence, and value creation.
Financial Strategy & Performance:
- Lead the Company's financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, and performance management processes.
- Develop financial models and strategic scenarios to support growth initiatives, product expansion, and investment decisions.
- Deliver insightful management reporting and performance analysis to the Executive Committee and Board.
- Establish clear profitability and return-on-capital metrics across products, channels, and customer segments.
- Drive continuous improvement in forecasting accuracy and financial discipline.
Treasury, Funding & Capital Management:
- Develop and execute the Company's funding and capital strategy.
- Ensure effective liquidity management and maintenance of adequate capital buffers.
- Lead relationships with banks, institutional lenders, development finance institutions, investors, and funding partners.
- Identify and execute opportunities to diversify funding sources and reduce cost of funds.
- Monitor capital adequacy and ensure alignment with regulatory and growth requirements.
- Support fundraising initiatives, including debt and equity transactions.
Investor Relations & Stakeholder Management:
- Build and maintain strong relationships with shareholders, investors, lenders, auditors, rating agencies, and key stakeholders.
- Present financial performance, strategic initiatives, and funding opportunities to existing and prospective investors.
- Ensure timely, accurate, and transparent communication with stakeholders.
- Support future capital raising and strategic partnership opportunities.
Regulatory Compliance & Governance:
- Ensure full compliance with all regulatory, statutory, tax, and reporting requirements.
- Maintain strong relationships with regulators, including the Central Bank of Nigeria and other relevant authorities.
- Lead statutory reporting, annual audits, tax management, and financial governance activities.
- Ensure effective internal controls, policies, and risk management frameworks are maintained and continuously improved.
- Promote a strong control environment and a "no surprises" culture.
Business Performance & Analytics:
- Drive the use of data and analytics to improve commercial decision-making.
- Establish robust business intelligence and management reporting capabilities.
- Monitor business performance, portfolio profitability, customer economics, and operational efficiency.
- Partner with Business, Risk, Product, Operations, and Technology teams to optimise financial outcomes.
- Ensure financial insights are translated into actionable business decisions.
Portfolio & Risk Management:
- Work closely with Risk and Business teams to optimise portfolio growth and profitability.
- Monitor portfolio quality, expected losses, provisioning, and risk-adjusted returns.
- Evaluate the financial implications of credit, liquidity, operational, and market risks.
- Support sustainable growth through disciplined balance sheet management.
Technology & Finance Transformation:
- Drive automation, digitisation, and continuous improvement across finance processes.
- Ensure finance systems and reporting infrastructure support business scalability.
- Improve reporting speed, quality, and accessibility through technology and data.
- Lead finance transformation initiatives that enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
Leadership & Talent Development:
- Build, lead, and develop a high-performing finance organisation.
- Foster a culture of accountability, ownership, continuous learning, and excellence.
- Develop succession plans and strengthen leadership capability across the finance function.
- Mentor and coach future finance leaders within the organisation.
- Collaborate effectively across all business functions to achieve organisational goals.
Requirements
Education & Professional Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration, or a related discipline.
- ACA, ACCA, CPA, CFA, or equivalent professional qualification required.
- MBA or advanced business qualification is an advantage.
Experience:
- Minimum 15 years of progressive finance leadership experience.
- Minimum 5 years in a CFO, Finance Director, Deputy CFO, or equivalent executive role.
- Strong experience within financial services, banking, fintech, lending, payments, or consumer finance.
- Demonstrated success managing large balance sheets, funding programmes, and regulatory relationships.
- Proven experience leading fundraising, investor engagement, and capital management initiatives.
- Experience driving finance transformation and organisational growth.
Key Competencies:
Strategic & Commercial:
- Strong strategic thinking and business acumen.
- Ability to connect financial performance with business strategy.
- Strong understanding of growth, profitability, and value creation drivers.
Leadership:
- Executive presence and credibility with Boards, investors, regulators, and senior stakeholders.
- Proven ability to build and lead high-performing teams.
- Strong influencing and stakeholder management skills.
Technical Excellence:
- Deep knowledge of financial reporting, treasury, taxation, capital management, and regulatory requirements.
- Strong financial modelling and analytical capability.
- Experience with modern finance systems and data-driven decision-making.
Personal Attributes:
- High integrity and sound judgement.
- Strong accountability and ownership mindset.
- Resilient and adaptable in fast-paced environments.
- Results-oriented with a bias for execution.
- Collaborative and able to work effectively across multiple functions.
Success Measures:
Within the first 6–12 months, the CFO will be expected to:
- Strengthen profitability and forecasting accuracy.
- Improve capital efficiency and liquidity management.
- Enhance management reporting and business insights.
- Successfully execute funding and capital initiatives.
- Strengthen investor, Board, and regulatory confidence.
- Improve finance operational efficiency through automation and transformation.
- Build a high-performing finance leadership team capable of supporting the Company's long-term growth ambitions.