Finance and Operations Director

Finance and Operations Director

Full Time | Thame, Oxfordshire | Reporting to the Managing Director | Senior Leadership Team

• Lead finance and operations for a 25-person machine vision business with teams in the UK, Germany, Spain and France
• Own four P&Ls, cash, banking, tax and reporting across four countries
• Lead a team of seven across customer service, purchasing, production, warehouse, internal systems and finance
• Run the operating rhythm of the business alongside the Managing Director

The Mission

We’re building something special at Clearview. We’re a European machine vision business with a clear ambition, to be recognised as the greatest machine vision company in the world. Over the last 18 years we’ve grown from a UK start-up into a profitable four-country business with our own software products and an engineering capability our customers rely on. We now need our finance and operations to keep pace with our ambition.

This role is key to that and it has two halves and one leader. You’ll own our finances across four countries and you’ll lead the team that runs our operations and our finance function day to day. You’ll report to the Managing Director and be a key member of the senior leadership team, with real scope to shape the role as the business grows.

This is not a back-office finance role and it is not a job building an operations team. The team is built and it runs well. We need someone who leads it, owns the numbers properly and brings the experience of scaling a B2B business to our next stage. Over the next two years that means one clear view of the numbers across four countries, a banking and funding structure built for a European group, operations and systems that scale without adding people and a leadership team that delivers what it commits to. If that list excites you rather than worries you, keep reading.

What the Role Looks Like

Owning the numbers. Four P&Ls, four sets of accounts, VAT and tax in four jurisdictions and the statutory filings that go with them. Budgets, forecasts, management accounts and margin visibility by country, product line and customer sit with you. Our Finance Manager reports to you and the result is yours. You’ll know why gross margin moved this month and what we’re doing about it next month.

Owning cash and controls. Working capital is the lifeblood of a distribution business. You’ll manage cash flow in a growing business, set customer credit terms against supplier payment terms, run the controls that make decisions quick and safe and own our banking relationships across four countries. You’ll shape the banking and funding structure of a growing European group and be the day-to-day contact for our banks, accountants and advisers.

Running operations in a distributor. Stock levels, supplier lead times and payment cycles, pricing and margin, on-time delivery and customer service our customers rate highly, across four countries. You’ll know how a distributor makes money and where it leaks. You’ll keep the order-to-cash process clean and the systems behind it (we run Zoho ERP and CRM and a Shopify e-commerce store) scaling with the growth.

Leading the operating rhythm. We run the business on EOS. Weekly leadership meetings, a scorecard, dashboards and quarterly priorities give us clarity, consistency and speed. You’ll lead that rhythm, keep the senior team focused on what it has committed to, resolve the issues that cross functions and make sure that what we plan is what we deliver. You’ll be the Managing Director’s counterpart on the numbers and the plan.

Leading the team. Seven people across customer service, purchasing, warehouse, internal systems and finance, in the UK, Spain, Germany and France. They’re good at their jobs and proud of what they achieve. Your job is to give them clarity, standards and room, while developing the leaders within the team.

Who You Are

We’re less interested in whether your CV ticks every box and more interested in how you think, how you work and what people are like around you.

Fluent in the numbers

You’ve owned finance at a senior level in more than one country rather than reviewed what someone else produced. You can read a set of accounts and see the story underneath, then explain it to people who don’t think in numbers. You’re as comfortable in the detail of a VAT return as in a discussion about funding.

An operator at heart

You understand how a business actually works. You know how an order becomes a delivery, how stock turns into cash and how a supplier problem becomes a customer problem if nobody catches it. You’re as happy in the warehouse as in the spreadsheet.

Commercially sharp, strategic and hands-on

You think in margin and cash as well as in plans. You can set the three-year direction and still open the spreadsheet yourself, because in a business of our size there’s no layer between deciding and doing.

A leader of people who are already good

You earn the respect of a strong, established team rather than demanding it. You develop the people around you, you hold them to high standards without drama and you’re the kind of leader good people want to work for.

Open and transparent

You say what you think, with care and early. You give the leadership team an honest view of the numbers and the risks and you expect the same in return.

A true growth mindset

This is the trait that separates the people who thrive at Clearview from those who don’t. You embrace change, seek out feedback and treat every setback as something to learn from rather than something to explain away. You’re not someone who says “that’s not how we did it at my last place”. You’re someone who asks “how can I do this better?”

Background

The following is a guide, not a checklist, with one exception. We need a qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent). Beyond that we’d rather meet someone with three years of the right experience than ten years of the wrong kind.

• Senior finance and operations experience in a B2B product business, ideally technical distribution, engineering or manufacturing, with international P&Ls, more than one legal entity and more than one currency
• You’ve led a team and you’ve owned budgets, forecasts, cash and controls, not just reviewed them
• Hands-on experience of bank facilities, invoice finance, cash flow management and tax compliance across more than one jurisdiction
• Stock, supply chain and ERP in the mix, with Zoho or a similar system
• Experience of EOS, Scaling Up or a similar business operating system is a real advantage
• An owner-managed or privately backed business, where things get done without a large support function behind you
• Spanish, German or French is useful, not required

Why Clearview

We know that talented people have choices, so here’s why we think Clearview is worth your time.

A culture people love. We’re Great Place to Work® certified five years in a row and our Employee Happiness NPS is world class. We’re obsessed with happiness, for our employees, our customers and our partners. It’s how we run the business.

Values that mean something. Happiness, Accountability, Growth Mindset, Transparency, Expertise and Conscientiousness. They aren’t laminated on a wall and forgotten. They shape how we hire, how we work and how we treat each other and our customers.

A real seat at the table and room to grow. You’ll work directly with the founder and the senior leadership team and see the effect of your decisions within weeks. Finance and operations in one seat is the breadth a future CFO or COO is built on. If that is your plan, this is the kind of seat that gets you there and we’ll help you get there, with coaching and a development plan built around where you want to get to.

Technology and ambition. Machine vision sits behind an enormous amount of modern manufacturing, from medical devices to food production. We partner with the world’s leading manufacturers, Teledyne, Zebra and others, we build systems and we write our own software. We’re building towards a business several times the size we are today within five years.

What We Offer

Competitive salary (depending on experience), 30 days holiday (with the option to purchase 5 more), private healthcare and dental plan, birthday bonus, Friday team lunch, cycle-to-work scheme, company pension, hybrid working built around time with your team and real investment in your learning and professional development.

Interested?

If this sounds like you, or close to you, we’d love to talk. Don’t let a job spec hold you back if you have the right mindset and the drive to make things happen. Send us your CV and a few lines on why this is the right next step for you.

At Clearview, we foster a work environment that is inclusive as well as diverse, where our people can be themselves. Applications are encouraged from everyone and we treat all applications equally, recruiting based on skills and experience.

No recruitment agencies please.