[Hiring] Group Chief Financial Officer @Decentralized Masters

Role Description

A single education business at this revenue and margin commands a private-market multiple in the mid single digits of earnings. A diversified group - education, publishing, software, wealth and tax planning tools, investment products and a regulated fund, each valued on its own sector methodology and connected by real shared-services and synergy architecture - is a fundamentally different asset. Closing that gap is the job. Concretely, you will:

• Build the sum-of-the-parts valuation framework across every business unit, with a defensible methodology and comparables set for each.
• Structure each entity so that it maximizes its own multiple, and structure the group so the whole is worth more than the parts.
• Take the group from founder-run reporting to institutional-grade financials that survive a quality-of-earnings review and a full due diligence process.
• Take the group to market early - deliberately ahead of a formal process - and convert what buyers and advisers tell us into operational change while there is still time to act on it.
• Build the group equity story and the materials that put it in front of institutional buyers, and run the process alongside the CEO and advisers.
• Design the employee incentive architecture at group level, so the people who carry each unit are aligned before a transaction rather than after it.
• Stand up the regulated fund and the investor infrastructure behind it.
• Protect and improve the economics of the cash engine while all of the above happens. If DM slows, none of the rest matters.

Qualifications

• 10-20 years in finance, including 3+ years as CFO, Group CFO or VP Finance with full P&L and balance sheet accountability.
• Direct, hands-on experience of a transaction.
• Multi-entity holdco or portfolio experience.
• Sum-of-the-parts fluency.
• Performance-marketing economics.
• Multi-jurisdiction experience with real consolidation, ideally including the UAE, the US and Europe.
• Experience owning the relationship with external counsel, auditors and transaction advisers.
• Fully conversant in both IFRS and US GAAP.
• A prolific, demonstrable user of AI tools in finance work.

Requirements

• Financial services depth - you have worked across at least two of publishing, education, software, wealth management or fund management.
• You have structured or operated an investment fund.
• PE-backed or PE operating experience.
• Crypto and digital asset exposure.
• Subscription accounting and deferred revenue depth across high-ticket, payment plan and recurring products.

Do Not Apply If…

• Your entire career has been in large corporate environments with no exposure to founder-led, high-growth or PE-backed businesses.
• You have never been close to a transaction.
• You have never treated paid acquisition as a strategic cost lever.
• You need six months to ramp before you add value.
• You prefer slow-moving, consensus-heavy environments.
• You do not want legal, regulatory and corporate affairs coordination in your remit.
• You want to build a large team before you have personally fixed the numbers.
• You are not actively using AI tools in your work today.

Personality & Cultural Fit

• Direct communicator who challenges the founders with data, in the room, in real time.
• Equally credible with a PE partner and with a media buyer.
• Entrepreneurial and comfortable in ambiguity.
• Zero tolerance for sloppy reporting, in your team or in yourself.
• Builder mentality. Comfortable in the model and in the detail when it matters.

Benefits

• Competitive base, depending on transaction and holdco experience.
• Performance bonus tied to enterprise value creation, not just operating margin.
• A transaction bonus on a successful capital event.
• Equity participation under the C-suite framework.
• UAE-based roles are tax-free.
• Direct access to the founders and a peer relationship with the Group COO.
• An inherited finance team, so you are building the architecture rather than clearing a backlog alone.