Finance Director / Cfo (Interim) in Winchester

Shape and drive the vision for our financial accounting, reporting, controls, and tax strategy; playing a pivotal role in delivering outstanding financial outcomes for Arqiva. As the Group Finance Director, you’ll set the strategic direction, elevate financial governance, and empower teams to deliver, instilling a high performance culture. This is a high-impact leadership role at the heart of our organisation, where your expertise will influence decision-making at the highest level and ensure our financial excellence.

Reporting directly to the CFO, you must be able to travel to our Crawley Court (Winchester) and Newman Street (London) offices 2 or 3 times per week.

• Set and lead execution of the vision and strategy for finance operations.
• Be the senior point of contact for finance operations, liaising with the CFO and other key stakeholders.
• Provide financial insights and reporting to senior leadership, informing decision-making.
• Support the business in ensuring the financial and commercial performance required to meet targets and its long-term business plan.
• Identify and implement operating model, process and system improvements, and automation opportunities, as well as best practices in governance and reporting, to drive greater financial efficiency and effectiveness, working in partnership with the Head of Finance Transformation.
• Ensure the accuracy, integrity and timeliness of financial reporting for Arqiva and its subsidiaries and ensure compliance with all relevant reporting and regulatory standards.
• Lead the compilation of the Annual Report, statutory and regulatory accounts.
• Ensure the preparation of comprehensive documentation for the annual audit and participate in the Audit & Risk Committee, interacting and informing effectively with the Audit Chair and Committee.
• Work closely with the CFO and Investor Relations to ensure Group performance is clearly communicated and market expectations well-managed.
• Support the CFO in preparing for annual and interim results, as well as investor roadshows and interactions with the regulatory.
• Manage effective relationships with external auditors, regulators, and other financial stakeholders.
• Design and operate an effective financial control environment, commensurate with a business of this scale with publicly listed financial instruments.
• Work closely with the Directors of Business Finance and Corporate Finance, and financial controllers, to ensure a robust control framework is in operation.
• Ensure compliance with all internal, regulatory and statutory financial requirements.
• Set and lead the end-to-end strategy, governance, and lifecycle management of Finance data across Arqiva to maintain compliance with statutory, accounting and regulatory rules; produce detailed financial reports.
• Define and drive the Finance data strategy, aligned with business priorities and reporting needs.
• Establish and maintain a Finance data lake, whilst ensuring scalability, traceability, and alignment with enterprise architecture.
• Lead the design of enterprise-grade Finance data models and semantic layers to support analytics, regulatory and statutory reporting, and operational Finance needs.
• Establish and enforce data governance standards, policies, and stewardship processes for Finance data.
• Work closely with Finance, Audit, and Technology leaders to align on priorities and data needs.
• Work closely with the Directors of Business Finance and Corporate Finance to establish KPIs, dashboards, and operating mechanisms to measure data quality, controls effectiveness, and team performance.
• Oversee tax strategy, compliance, planning and reporting for the entire Group, ensuring timely filing.