Finance Director - UAE/Dubai

N.B. Online retail/ecommerce trading sector experience is an essential requirement. 

A long-established retail operations group, with operations across the Middle East, is seeking to appoint a CFO. The incoming CFO will preferably be based in Dubai. To this end, you must be comfortable with working and living across the Middle East, for this role will involve travel to many cities within the GCC region. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic the business has acted decisively to capitalise on the increased online opportunities available and made great efforts to improve their ecommerce offering. The business has already made notable strides forward in this area with a commercially astute business transformation programme to facilitate the seamless adjustment to new ways of working and an increased demand for their unique offering in the FMCG space.

As the CFO, you will lead the organisation’s finance function and work directly for the newly appointed CEO, being a natural business partner to them, providing quality insight together with budgeting, reporting and accounting services and the overall oversight of a mature and competent finance team. Being a visibly senior leader within the business, you will institute a series of business process improvement initiatives across systems implementations, payroll, supply chain management, cost reduction and data optimisation. The organisation, while conscious of the desire to expand and capitalise on emerging revenue streams, wishes to reduce risks in a number of critical areas and the CFO will be expected to strengthen governance, compliance and put in place risk-mitigation methodologies.

For this position, the appointed CFO will be qualified in finance, business or accounting, with an excellent academic background. It is highly desirable that the candidates applying will have undergone accountancy training within a top-tier practice. Furthermore, in your prior career you will have acted as a finance leader, ensuring best practice and dealing with all relevant external stakeholders in a credible and transparent manner. You will be a champion of the business’ interests and seek to set the strategy and growth-generation agenda with the CEO while delivering a programme to improve profit margin and remove superfluous costs.

To be successful, you will need to have worked in finance within the arena of online retail/ ecommerce, showing steady career progression. The business is looking for a leader who has a natural curiosity and a willingness to participate in the strategy, development and execution of company-wide transformational initiatives that encompass not only finance but also operations, procurement and purchasing. It is hoped that the CFO, in many ways, will be able to deputise for the CEO if needed. Though not essential, the CEO and senior leadership team would look favourably upon candidates who have had experience of having worked in the Middle East previously. A candidate who was already in Dubai with the ability to mobilise quickly would be the ideal option. The ability to speak Arabic would be a major advantage, but it is not mandatory. Visa sponsorship and allowances will be provided for candidates who are not already in the UAE, with the end client NOT discriminating on the grounds of race, gender, ethnicity, nationality,  sexual orientation, age or marital status.

Applications should be made via the CV submission link.