Job Description
At Blackbird, our mission is to be a generational owner of the most ambitious tech companies founded by Aussies and Kiwis, wherever in the world they might be. To match this ambition as we grow, we are building a world-class Finance and Strategy function to empower the wider Blackbird team to deliver on key initiatives and to ensure that we are a transparent and fully-compliant financial services organisation.
We’re looking for an exceptional Head of Management Finance to supercharge our Finance team. The Head of Management Finance is a newly created role that will report to our COO and Partner, Alex Apoifis and be responsible for leading Blackbird’s high performing, friendly and fun management company finance team.
Taking ownership of the management company finance function, you’ll be able to seamlessly transition between developing the function's strategy through to hands on execution. Some of the examples of the work you will lead:
- Leading the team: Leading, mentoring and developing the FP&A and financial accounting teams and evolving the strategy for our management company finance function.
- Budgeting, planning & forecasting: Developing and managing a budgeting, reporting and forecasting cadence for Blackbird, including preparation of reporting and insights to the Executive Group and the Board.
- Commercial and business acumen: Supporting Blackbird's growth trajectory by partnering with the business to provide independent analysis and commercial expertise to key strategic decisions. This includes supporting resource allocation decisions in line with Blackbird’s strategy and finding efficiencies and savings as we grow.
- Risk management, audit and compliance: Advancing Blackbird’s financial risk management frameworks, overseeing all audit and financial control operations and ensuring adherence to Blackbird’s various financial regulatory requirements (e.g. AFSL and GS007).
- Tax: Overseeing Blackbird’s tax affairs for our Australian and New Zealand entities. Where appropriate, liaising with external advisers to ensure financial and regulatory compliance are upheld with the relevant body.
- Continuous improvement: Continuously find opportunities to innovate and develop new products and structures for the benefit of our investors and our shareholders.
- Financial systems: Overseeing and reviewing existing finance systems and implementing upgrades and changes as required.
Position Requirements
Your background is less important than the key skills, which might include:
- Leadership: Exceptional ability to build great relationships with the finance team and leadership team across Blackbird via excellent communication skills, collaboration and becoming a trusted partner.
- Technical skills: Advanced knowledge of corporate finance, tax and accounting principles, standards, laws and best practices.
- A voice of financial reason: provide an independent perspective to constructively challenge business decisions, ensuring they are grounded in solid financial criteria.
- Creative problem solving and strategic thinking: able to independently come up with new strategic ideas, solve challenges, and communicate these well with the team and our external stakeholders.
- Clarity of thought: The ability to distil the business of Blackbird into key insights that then help support strategic decisions.
- Humility, low-ego: We are a small team and no one is too good to do anything. We all take out the garbage (literally and figuratively).
- Hospitality Mindset: In our dealings with founders and investors, we take a hospitality mindset. We serve our founders, not the other way around. We are about people, not companies. Similarly, we treat our colleagues with generosity and respect. One team, one dream.
Working at Blackbird
We believe that building a diverse and inclusive team is critical to Blackbird’s success. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. We use Applied to ensure every applicant gets an equal chance of success.
We offer:
- Flexible working: Whether it’s working from home or leaving early to pick up the kids from daycare or school.
- Generous parental leave: We know family comes first, and we are proud to offer 20 weeks of parental leave for all parents (an additional 4 weeks for the birth parent), with no minimum tenure. In addition, we offer IVF, adoption and surrogacy leave. We also continue to pay superannuation and vest carried interest for up to 12 months of parental leave, and offer a supportive return-to-work policy to help with the ramp back.
- Learning & Development Budget: Our team is hungry to continuously learn and you’ll receive a budget to spend on books, conferences, training, coaching and courses relating to your profession.
- Wellbeing: We think in decades not days. To support our Blackbirds over the long haul we offer a range of holistic wellbeing benefits including a monthly healthy living allowance, 24/7 access to wellbeing support, a home office allowance, personal kit-kat days, and more!
- Unplugged weekends: We work hard without letting work get in the way of life. We’ve implemented no Slack or emails on weekends, so you can switch off and enjoy yourself.
- Connection: While being big fans of a fully distributed workforce, we value our vibe and time to connect online and IRL through team and company offsites, monthly social activities, weekly lunches and our many social clubs (#fun-manis, #fun-fantasybookclub, #bb-craft just to name a few!).
- A share of Blackbird’s success: We think it is important to share successes with the whole team. All Blackbird employees receive carry in funds raised and ownership in management companies formed while they are at the firm.
Blackbird is a Pledge 1% member — we pledge 1% of our time, equity and profits to help not-for-profit causes in our community. Through Pledge 1%, we established the Blackbird Foundation to supercharge the creative capabilities of young people.
We are also very proud to have won the 2023 AFR Best Place to Work award in three categories including Overall winner. In 2022, we became certified as one of Australia’s Great Places to Work.
