Fractional Finance Lead / Financial Controller

Role type: Permanent, part-time - 3 days per week

Salary: £80,000–£85,000 FTE, depending on experience (£48,000–£51,000 pro rata for 3 days per week)

Location: UK-based remote, with monthly in-person co-working. This will usually be at Patch in Twickenham, though the location may vary.

Start date: Flexible

The Role in One Sentence

Act as a hands-on finance lead across a portfolio of founder-led businesses: owning clean numbers, useful forecasts, monthly insight, stronger systems and better decisions.

About Numbers for Impact

Numbers for Impact is a specialist finance partner for purpose-led, founder-led startups and scaleups.

We work with ambitious founders who need more than bookkeeping, compliance or standard accounting support. They need clear numbers, practical financial insight, strong foundations and calm guidance as they make decisions about growth, cash, hiring, pricing, investment and risk.

Our clients include a leading food scaleup, a fashiontech B2B SaaS startup with the potential to eliminate waste in the fashion industry, mission-driven consumer businesses, innovative coaching companies, and AI-led businesses tackling complex social challenges.

Our role is to make finance useful. We help founders understand what is happening, what it means, what might happen next and what they should do about it.

Numbers for Impact exists to empower founders with numbers and to challenge the status quo of traditional financial support. We believe finance should be clear, human, practical and connected to real decisions - not slow, opaque, jargon-heavy or transactional.

About the Founder

You will work directly with the founder of Numbers for Impact and join as the fourth member of a small, growing team.

Numbers for Impact was founded to give ambitious, purpose-led founders the kind of finance support that genuinely helps them build better businesses. Too often, founders either receive basic compliance support that does not help them make decisions, or overly complex finance advice that feels disconnected from the reality of running a growing company.

The business was created to offer something different: rigorous but practical finance support, strong relationships, useful insight, and a calm financial partner who helps founders feel more confident and in control.

This matters because the role is not just about delivering outputs. You will be helping shape how the business grows, how we work with clients, and how we continue to build a finance partner that is human, technically strong and genuinely useful.

About the Role

We are hiring a Fractional Finance Lead / Financial Controller to take ownership of the FP&A, financial control, technical finance and systems side of our client work.

This role requires FD-level judgement and FC-level grip. You need to be commercially sharp enough to advise founders on decisions, forecasts, trade-offs and priorities, while staying close enough to the detail to know whether the numbers, systems and controls are actually reliable.

This is not a detached advisory role. It is hands-on finance leadership across a portfolio of founder-led businesses.

This is not a traditional in-house finance role. You will not be embedded in one company with one set of stakeholders, one monthly rhythm and one business model. You will work across a portfolio of founder-led businesses at the same time.

That variety is central to the role. For the right person, it will be energising: different sectors, different founders, different commercial models, different systems, different questions and different stages of growth. For the wrong person, it will feel fragmented. We want to be clear about that.

This is also not a standard accountant role. We are not looking for someone who simply wants to process accounts, produce reports and keep things compliant. Those things matter, but they are only the starting point.

We are looking for someone who wants to operate as a fractional finance lead: close enough to the numbers to ensure they are clean and reliable, and close enough to the founder to help them understand what the numbers mean and what decisions they need to make.

For some clients, particularly those whose core need is monthly financial insight, you will become the primary finance lead. You will own the rhythm of the relationship, lead the insight conversations, and be the person the founder looks to for clear interpretation, challenge and practical next steps.

You will combine the technical discipline of a strong Financial Controller, the commercial curiosity of a finance lead, the practical modelling skills of FP&A, and the communication skills to make finance feel useful rather than intimidating.

Relationships are central to how we work. This is not a transactional service where finance reports are sent over the fence once a month. We aim to build real human partnerships with founders and their teams, so the numbers are understood in context and the advice lands in a way that can actually be used.

What You’ll Own

1. Portfolio Finance Leadership

You will support several founder-led businesses at the same time, bringing structure, clarity and financial discipline across different contexts.

You will need to:

• Manage the rhythm of finance work across multiple clients.
• Switch between different businesses without losing detail.
• Build trust with founders and their teams.
• Adapt your style to different personalities, sectors and stages of growth.
• Stay calm and organised when priorities shift.
• Help founders feel clearer, more confident and more in control.

2. FP&A and Commercial Insight

You will own practical FP&A across the client portfolio.

You will need to:

• Build and maintain forecasts, budgets and scenario models.
• Translate business plans into clear financial implications.
• Challenge assumptions constructively.
• Identify risks, trade-offs, cash pinch points and decision points.
• Turn financial data into a simple narrative founders can act on.
• Help clients look forward, not just backwards.

The goal is not to build the most complex model. The goal is to help founders make better decisions.

3. Financial Control and Technical Standards

You will make sure the numbers are clean, reliable and available quickly.

You will need to:

• Own and improve month-end processes.
• Ensure reconciliations, controls, accuracy and financial hygiene across clients.
• Maintain clean ledgers, useful reporting structures and reliable management accounts.
• Work effectively with external accountants, bookkeepers and tax advisers.
• Translate technical accounting or compliance issues into clear actions.
• Know when technical precision matters and when excessive detail gets in the way.

You will set the standard for what good finance looks like across our client base.

4. Systems, Automation and AI

You will help improve how Numbers for Impact uses systems, automation and AI in finance work.

You will need to:

• Look for ways technology can improve speed, quality, consistency or insight.
• Experiment with new tools and workflows in a structured way.
• Test whether something genuinely adds value before embedding it.
• Avoid adopting tools because they are fashionable.
• Avoid rejecting tools before properly understanding them.
• Build simple, maintainable systems rather than clever but fragile ones.
• Keep human judgement at the centre of financial decision-making.

We want someone who is technology-positive and critical: curious enough to experiment, disciplined enough to only adopt what works.

5. Client Leadership, Monthly Insight and Founder Communication

You will work directly with founders and non-finance teams. For selected clients, you will be the primary finance lead, particularly where our work centres on monthly insight, reporting and decision support.

This is a relationship-led role. We are looking for someone who wants to build genuine trust with clients, understand the people and pressures behind the numbers, and become a steady finance partner rather than a distant adviser.

You will need to:

• Lead monthly insight conversations with founders.
• Own the rhythm, agenda and follow-through for selected client relationships.
• Explain financial issues in plain language.
• Highlight the few things that matter most.
• Turn monthly numbers into clear implications, decisions and next steps.
• Provide calm, grounded recommendations during uncertainty or major decisions.
• Build strong relationships beyond the numbers.
• Understand the people, pressures and commercial reality behind each client’s business.
• Treat finance support as a human partnership, not a transactional service.
• Help clients act, not just understand.
• Know when to bring in the founder of Numbers for Impact for support, escalation or strategic input.

There may be opportunities, and at times a need, to co-work in person with clients. We encourage this where it helps build stronger relationships, deepen understanding of the business and maximise the impact of our work.

6. Numbers for Impact’s Operating Model

You will work closely with the founder and help improve how we deliver finance support as we grow.

You will need to:

• Bring structure, technical depth and operational calm.
• Develop repeatable approaches without making the service feel generic.
• Improve templates, systems, standards and internal processes.
• Spot where quality or consistency can improve.
• Help build a finance function model that is rigorous, human and genuinely useful.
• Contribute to the culture, standards and ways of working of a small team where your voice will matter.

Who You Are

Qualified and Technically Strong

You are a qualified accountant - ACA, ACCA or CIMA - with strong experience in financial control, FP&A or senior finance operations.

You know what good looks like. You understand accounting systems, controls, reporting, month-end, forecasting and financial processes. You are confident improving messy or underdeveloped finance setups and raising the standard.

Energised by Portfolio Work

You enjoy variety. You like working across several businesses at once and can switch gears without dropping detail.

You are comfortable with different founders, different sectors, different levels of financial maturity and different operating rhythms.

Commercial and Founder-Friendly

You care about what the numbers mean, not just whether they are technically correct.

You can explain financial concepts clearly to non-finance people. You are direct without being blunt, calm without being passive, and technically strong without being intimidating.

Systems-Minded and Technology-Critical

You like clean processes, clear ownership and simple systems.

You are interested in AI, automation and better ways of working, but you care about accuracy, controls, maintainability and client value. You test before adopting.

This Role Is For You If

• You want to operate as a fractional finance lead across multiple founder-led businesses.
• You bring FD-level judgement but are still willing to get close to the detail.
• You enjoy variety and can move between clients without losing detail.
• You are strong technically but care more about useful decisions than perfect spreadsheets.
• You like building clean, simple systems and improving how finance work gets done.
• You are curious about AI and automation, but you test tools properly before embedding them.
• You enjoy working directly with founders and helping them feel clearer, calmer and more in control.
• You believe strong finance work depends on trust, context and human relationships, not just accurate reporting.
• You are comfortable being the primary finance lead for selected clients, not just supporting behind the scenes.
• You enjoy leading monthly insight conversations and helping founders decide what matters now.
• You want meaningful, technically strong finance work without necessarily wanting a full-time corporate finance leadership role.

This Role Is Probably Not For You If

• You want to focus on one company, one sector and one set of stakeholders.
• You want a purely strategic FD role and prefer not to get involved in financial control, systems or process detail.
• You prefer finance work that is mainly compliance, bookkeeping or statutory accounts.
• You are uncomfortable working with incomplete information.
• You like highly established processes more than building and improving them.
• You adopt new tools because they are fashionable, or reject them before testing them.
• You do not enjoy explaining financial concepts to non-finance people.
• You prefer to stay behind the scenes rather than owning client conversations and follow-through.
• You want to operate at a distance from clients rather than building strong working relationships with them.
• You see finance support as mainly transactional rather than relationship-led.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role means:

• Clients receive clean, useful numbers quickly.
• Founders understand what their numbers mean and what to do next.
• Forecasts and models become practical decision-making tools.
• Selected clients have a clear, well-run monthly insight rhythm.
• Month-end and reporting processes become more consistent and reliable.
• External accountants and advisers are well-managed and properly connected to the client context.
• Technology and AI are used where they genuinely improve quality, speed or insight.
• Numbers for Impact has a stronger, more scalable finance operating model.

Practical Details

This is a permanent, part-time role at 3 days per week.

The role is open to someone based anywhere in the UK. Most work can be done remotely, but there needs to be a clear commitment to in-person co-working once a month. This will usually be at Patch in Twickenham, though the location may vary depending on team and client needs.

There may also be opportunities, and at times a need, to co-work in person with clients. We encourage this where it helps build stronger relationships beyond the numbers, deepen understanding of the business and maximise the impact of our work.

The role suits someone who values autonomy and remote work, but also understands that strong relationships and high-quality client work sometimes require being in the room.

Why This Role Matters

Your work will give founders confidence, clarity and control.

You will help several ambitious businesses make better decisions, avoid avoidable problems and build stronger financial foundations.

You will also help shape the next stage of Numbers for Impact: how we deliver excellent finance support, how we use technology intelligently, and how we build a service that is rigorous, human, relationship-led and genuinely useful.