Chief Finance And Operations Officer

Play a leading role in ensuring every child can flourish in their school and community.

About us

West London Zone is an award-winning charity that proactively identifies children at a tipping point of need in some of the UK’s most under-resourced neighbourhoods. Working in schools through tailored Impact Programmes we support each child’s Social, Emotional, and Academic progress to drive a SEA change, promoting positive community change.

We are a medium-sized charity, with annual revenue of approximately £7m and a headcount of over 110 employees. Following eight years of impact for children and families in west London via an innovative partnership model – involving young people, families, schools (50+), local authorities (4), charities and community organisations (50+) – our next 3-year plan takes us to a £10m charity committed to pursuing more and broader social change across our communities in three places and having a national influence.

Since our launch in 2016, we have helped over 4,500 children and young people to build the relationships, self-belief and skills they need to get on track to flourish into adulthood. However, we have ambitions plans to help more children and young people.

This is where you can make a substantial difference in the newly created position of Chief Finance and Operations Officer (CFOO).

About the role

The CFOO will report to the Chief Executive and play a pivotal role for us, as we broaden and deepen our impact, transitioning from local to national scale. You will oversee and drive development of all financial and operational management, processes and reporting. As we continue to evolve, you will lead the integration of our most developed place of work, west London, with our new place of work, Wigan in the Greater Manchester area, followed by a third place in the near/medium-term.

Working closely with the Chief Delivery and Impact Officer, who oversees all of our collaborative work in our communities with children and families, you will lead the development of our operating model for our growing range of activities. Ensuring we have the highest quality governance, business planning, finance, compliance and risk management functions, as well as robust systems, processes and policies to do our best work will be vital. To achieve this, you will be responsible for bringing together some of our existing functions and building a new team within the organisation.

About you

We seek an experienced strategic leader who has held a broad Finance and Operations position, with a track record of interacting at Board level and presenting clear financial and management information. Whilst you don’t have to be financially qualified, we do need someone with strong financial acumen and demonstrable ability to monitor, interpret and communicate financial information effectively. You will be experienced at scaling organisations and have delivered new and/or successful improvements to existing systems and processes, with a track record of driving changes or improvements to business plans, policies and procedures.

You will have a passion for our purpose, commitment to our mission and alignment with our organisational values. Whilst being robust about process, you need to be able to flex to changing circumstances and be skilled at getting the best out of people as well as driving a culture of continuous improvement and learning. Crucially, you be wholly committed to driving forward the core infrastructure for our work supporting children and families to flourish and communities to strengthen themselves. 

If you are excited at the prospect of driving change that leads to better outcomes for children and young people in their communities and takes us into our next chapter of growth, we’d love to hear from you!

Closing date: By 9am, Monday 20^th May 2024

For further information: https://www.peridotpartners.co.uk/jobs/chief-finance-and-operations-officer-west-london-zone/