At a Glance
- Tasks: Drive financial performance and support strategic decision-making in a fast-growing pet cremation business.
- Company: VetSpeed, a £25m innovative company in the pet services sector.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, 26 days leave, dog-friendly office, and employee wellbeing initiatives.
- Other info: Inclusive workplace welcoming diverse candidates and offering excellent career development opportunities.
- Why this job: Join a dynamic team and make a real impact on business growth and performance.
- Qualifications: Qualified accountant with strong analytical skills and finance business partnering experience.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 75000 £ per year.
Vetspeed is a £25m fast‑growing business providing B2B and B2C services in the UK within the pet cremation sector as well as hazardous waste management. With a strong growth agenda ahead, and many exciting opportunities in the sector, we’re looking for a commercially minded Head of Finance to join the team.
As Head of Finance, you will play a pivotal role in driving performance, supporting strategic decision‑making, and ensuring financial integrity across the business. Reporting directly to the CFO, this role combines hands‑on financial management with commercial insight, data analytics, and business performance analysis. You’ll work closely with operational and commercial teams to translate data into actionable insights, support monthly close processes, and help shape the company’s growth strategy through robust financial planning and analysis.
Key Accountabilities/Responsibilities
- Partner with business leaders across commercial, operations, and marketing to drive financial performance and accountability.
- Lead financial analysis and reporting, providing insight into key drivers of revenue, margin, and profitability.
- Develop and maintain dashboards and analytics to monitor business performance, trends, and KPIs.
- Manage the month‑end close process with our offshore financial service team (AP, AR, R2R), ensuring timely and accurate reporting and driving continuous improvements.
- Prepare and present monthly performance reviews and variance analysis to senior management.
- Own the budgeting, forecasting, and long‑term planning activities.
- Manage the integration accounts of a newly acquired business unit.
- Identify and implement process improvements to enhance financial visibility and efficiency.
- Drive and support strategic projects including investments from appraisal to execution and ROI analytics, corporate tenders, pricing analysis, product profitability, and support ambitious growth plans.
- Responsible for the health of the business units’ balance sheet in close collaboration with the regional financial controller, supporting explanations, investigations and close‑down activities.
- Lead the outsourcing of payroll.
- Line‑manage a team of 2–3.
- Ensure that the offshore financial accounting team adheres to processes and delivers accurate results and balance sheets.
About You
You are a proactive, analytical finance professional who enjoys getting under the skin of a business and helping to drive performance. You’ll be comfortable managing detail while also stepping back to provide strategic insight. You roll up your sleeves and get things started and finished, working well stand‑alone as well as across different teams. As part of driving performance, you are responsible for identifying opportunities and risks, recommending action plans and serving as a catalyst to challenge the business and drive forward critical initiatives to deliver the strategy.
Experience / Qualifications
- Qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent).
- Proven experience in a Finance Business Partner or Commercial Finance role as well as strong management accounting skills.
- Strong analytical and data interpretation skills, with the ability to tell the story behind the numbers and develop new analytics models and tools that make an impact.
- Experience across analytics, FP&A, management accounting and finance business partnering preferred.
- Excellent Excel and data visualisation skills.
- Strong communication skills with the ability to influence and challenge stakeholders.
- Organised, detail‑oriented, and comfortable managing multiple priorities.
- Experience working in Oracle would be a plus.
What We Offer
- Competitive base salary.
- Work‑life balance.
- 26 days annual leave.
- Cycle to work scheme.
- Initiatives focused on employee wellbeing.
- Pension.
- Discretionary bonus.
- Discounted staff pet care.
- Dog‑friendly office.
- Free parking available at Head Office.
Diversity and Inclusion
We are an inclusive employer and are keen to hear from candidates from all minority and diverse groups, including BAME, LGBTQ+, and those with disabilities and long‑term health conditions. We would be happy to discuss any reasonable adjustments needed during the recruitment process.
