Head of Finance

Overview

We are seeking a seasoned Head of Finance to lead the financial strategy and operations of a dynamic, fast-growing international payments organization based in Saudi Arabia. This senior leadership role is pivotal in shaping and executing a modern finance function that aligns with the company’s rapid expansion and evolving business needs. The ideal candidate will bring a strategic mindset, hands-on financial expertise, and a passion for process optimization to drive efficiency, accuracy, and scalability across all financial operations.

Key Responsibilities

The Head of Finance will oversee a comprehensive range of financial functions, ensuring robust management reporting, financial control, and strategic planning. Core responsibilities include:

• Financial Reporting & Analysis: Own the end-to-end management reporting process, including the preparation and analysis of P&L statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, and profitability reports. Deliver plan-vs-actual analysis across products, merchants, payment methods, and legal entities to provide actionable insights for executive leadership.
• Budgeting & Forecasting: Develop and maintain a robust budgeting and forecasting cycle, encompassing operating budgets, payment calendars, cash-flow forecasts, gap analysis, scenario planning, and obligation tracking. Ensure alignment between financial plans and business objectives.
• Financial Control & Compliance: Design and implement a rigorous financial control framework, including regular reconciliations, discrepancy classification, resolution SLAs, approval workflows, audit trails, and manual adjustment controls. Safeguard the integrity of financial data and ensure compliance with regulatory and statutory requirements.
• Merchant Settlements & Operations: Oversee merchant settlements, managing calculations, provider fees, minimum fees, surcharges, refunds, chargebacks, FX conversions, and balance transfers. Ensure accuracy and timeliness in settlement processes to maintain strong merchant relationships.
• Multi-Entity & Currency Management: Lead financial operations across multiple legal entities, currencies, and intercompany transactions. Prepare consolidated financial statements and provide critical information for statutory accounting and external audits.
• Financial Automation & Process Optimization: Serve as the business owner for financial automation initiatives, defining financial logic, KPIs, formulas, data sources, and acceptance criteria for dashboards and reports. Collaborate with Data Analysts, Data Engineers, and Development teams to validate financial outputs and prioritize automation projects based on business impact.
• Team Leadership & Development: Build, structure, and develop the Finance team by defining clear responsibilities, hiring top talent, establishing accountability, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Drive the professional growth of team members to align with the company’s evolving needs.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Communication: Present financial performance, risks, forecasts, and business insights to the CEO, founders, and senior leadership in clear, commercially focused language. Foster effective collaboration between Finance, Treasury, and Data functions while maintaining distinct operating boundaries.
• Scalability & Growth Support: Develop a scalable Finance function capable of supporting expansion across multiple markets, entities, currencies, and transaction volumes. Ensure financial processes and systems are designed to accommodate future growth and complexity.

Qualifications & Experience

To excel in this role, candidates must possess the following qualifications and experience:

• Professional Background: Minimum of 8 years of progressive experience in Finance, with at least 3 years in a leadership role managing a finance team or function.
• Industry Expertise: Proven track record in fintech, payments/PSP (Payment Service Providers), acquiring, EMI (Electronic Money Institution), banking, crypto payments, or another high-volume transactional business.
• Process Transformation: Demonstrated experience in building or transforming financial processes, particularly in transitioning from manual, Excel-based reporting to automated data pipelines and reporting systems.
• Multi-Entity & Currency Management: Strong expertise in managing financial operations across multiple legal entities, currencies, and intercompany transactions.
• Financial Reporting & Analysis: Hands-on experience in P&L, cash flow, balance sheet reporting, plan-vs-actual analysis, and financial forecasting.
• Strategic Financial Metrics: Ability to define financial metrics, establish standardized calculation methodologies, and develop unit economics and profitability analysis by product, customer, channel, or business line.
• Payment Flow Understanding: Comprehensive knowledge of payment flows, including settlement cycles, provider fees, processing and clearing costs, and their impact on financial performance.
• Technical Proficiency: Familiarity with financial software, ERP systems, and data visualization tools. Experience with financial automation and integration with data platforms is highly desirable.
• Leadership & Communication: Exceptional leadership skills with the ability to inspire and develop a high-performing finance team. Strong communication skills to articulate complex financial concepts to non-financial stakeholders.