Chief Financial Officer in London

About Métier

Métier is a luxury leather goods house dedicated to creating beautiful bags and accessories of the highest quality. Thoughtfully designed with different journeys in mind, our collections are intended to work together to enhance the function of each piece and to afford those who use them an effortless sense of ease. Founded in 2017 and based in London, Métier sources materials from exclusive tanneries in Italy and France; all production is done by hand by skilled artisans in Florence and Naples. We are a small team with global ambitions - Italian manufacturing, a US trading subsidiary, and customers around the world - and we are growing fast.

The Opportunity

As our CFO, you will partner with the CEO to scale a fast-growing, internationally complex and interesting business. You will inherit strong foundations - and you will be expected to take ownership of every financial lever that drives the next chapter: tightening controls, optimising working capital, owning our data and reporting infrastructure, and shaping the strategic decisions that will define Métier’s future. This is a hands‑on, roll‑up‑your‑sleeves role for someone who has scaled a business before - or is hungry to do so for the first time. You will lead a small finance team, sit on the senior management team, and work closely with our CEO and board. We are looking for someone who loves what we make as much as the numbers behind it. This is a full‑time role, reporting to the CEO, based in our beautiful London offices.

Main Duties & Responsibilities

• Strategic Partnership to the CEO
  • Act as a true commercial and strategic partner to the CEO and senior leadership across all major decisions - new market entries, channel mix, pricing, store openings, marketing investments and supplier strategy.
  • Bring rigour and challenge to business‑wide forecasting and budgeting; own all financial modelling for monthly reporting and reforecast.
  • Lead monthly reviews with the department heads to track performance versus plan, identifying risks and opportunities for the rolling reforecast and cash‑flow outlook.
  • Work with the CEO to set robust revenue targets for each sales channel and recalibrate as trade performance evolves.
• Financial Controls, Reporting & Systems
  • Lead the finance team in day‑to‑day accounting: bookkeeping, invoice approvals, AP and AR, monthly consolidated management accounts, payroll and social‑security submissions across UK, Italy and US, quarterly VAT returns, and preparation of statutory accounts with our external accountants.
  • Own and elevate the reporting cadence (weekly trading meeting, monthly board pack, KPI dashboards) ensuring timely, accurate insight that gives context to the numbers.
  • Lead the finance team's transition to AI‑enabled ways of working, identifying where automation and AI tools can replace manual processes, accelerate close, and free the team to focus on commercial work.
  • Revisit and re‑architect our ERP and data flow as the business scales: oversee Brightpearl, ensure clean reconciliation with Xero, and build a systems and data infrastructure that can mature with us.
• Cash & Working Capital
  • Own the long‑term cash‑flow forecast and lead conversations with financing providers about working‑capital requirements.
  • Provide the CEO and board with reliable short‑ and long‑term cash‑flow forecasts.
  • Oversee and approve the weekly payment schedule; ensure strong communication of upcoming payments and any changes across departments.
  • Partner with the Head of Merchandising on OTB budgeting - optimise stock levels to balance growth, cash flow and gross margin in an inventory‑intensive business.
• Statutory, Legal & Risk
  • Ensure the company’s financial practices remain in line with statutory regulations and legislation in the UK, US and Italy, plus any future international expansion.
  • Oversee legal questions across the business and act as first point of contact for queries from team members and external stakeholders.
  • Oversee all contracts including office, supplier agreements, partnership agreements.
  • Prepare the monthly board pack, quarterly investor update and ad‑hoc investor requests.
  • Board meeting administration and preparation.
  • Support CEO in future fundraising processes.

Who You Are

You are commercially minded, hands‑on, and energised by the complexity of running an international, commercial and manufacturing involved business with a small team. You are as comfortable in the detail of a spreadsheet as in a board meeting. You are motivated by ambition rather than job title - this is a role that will stretch you, and we want someone who relishes that.

Essential

• Qualified accountant.
• Operator background - you have held senior in‑house finance roles, not just worked in practice.
• Multi‑entity, multi‑currency international experience (UK / Italy / US, or directly comparable); Italian exposure highly beneficial.
• Demonstrable experience embedding AI and automation into finance workflows — you have actively reshaped how a finance team works, not just talked about it.
• Experience scaling a finance function in a fast‑growing business - ideally taking a small team into something significantly larger.
• Hands‑on with cash flow and working capital in an inventory‑heavy business.
• Commercially literate - you can drive conversations with marketing, merchandising and growth.
• Strong leader and team builder, with the credibility to develop a finance function as it grows.
• Advanced Excel; comfortable digging into the detail and re‑architecting systems and data flows where needed.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills.
• A genuine passion for what we make - luxury, craft and quality matter to you.

Ideal background includes two or more:

• Luxury or premium consumer brands.
• Multi‑entity manufacturing businesses, particularly with European production.
• Globally operating, fast‑growing businesses that have scaled from small to large teams.