Strategic Finance Manager

Job Description

The mandate

Sit beside the CFO of a €15 billion company. Find the problems that matter. Build the case. Drive the change.

IFS is approaching €2 billion in revenue and growing more than 20% a year — because we bet earlier and harder on industrial AI than anyone in our category. EQT, Hg, TA Associates, ADIA, and CPP Investments didn't fund incremental software growth. They funded a thesis: the companies that build and run the physical world will run on agentic AI, and on IFS.

That thesis generates real decisions — on capital, on structure, on where the business is and isn't working — every quarter. This role exists to find the friction, frame the question, and drive the answer through to something that actually changes.

What you'll own

• Answer the unowned questions. Build or buy? Enter this vertical — at what cost, for what return? Where is margin actually made and lost? How far can AI rewire our own cost base? You scope each from a blank page and return with a recommendation that holds up in the room.
• Identify what's broken and drive it to fixed. You'll carry two or three major cross-functional initiatives at any time — not as a contributor, but as the owner. That means diagnosing the real problem, aligning the right people across the business, and holding accountability for the output. This isn't advisory work. The change happens, or it doesn't, and that's on you.
• Build the case — and present it. Long-range plan, M&A and partnership analyses, capital allocation, board and investor materials. You'll own the model and the story it tells, and you'll be in the room as it's argued — exposure to the board, shareholders, and prospective investors that most people wait a decade for.
• Reinvent how the work gets done. We run on bleeding-edge technology — agentic AI, automated modelling, real-time data — and we expect you to push it further. Find what's slow or wrong in how we forecast, report, and decide, and rebuild it. This team should be the proof of what an AI-native finance org looks like, and you should be the one inventing it.

Why it's rare

You'll work directly with the CFO of a €15B+ company at the moment it reshapes itself around industrial AI — in the room with the board and investors, close enough to move the decisions, early enough to build a foundation almost no one gets. Real questions, real stakes, answers that change what the company does. For the right person, this isn't a job — it's the experience that defines a career.

Qualifications

Who we're hiring

We're hiring for one thing above all: the ability to take a question you've never seen, with messy data and real money riding on it, and make real progress in hours. You break problems down, find the load-bearing assumption, and pressure-test your own logic before anyone else can.

You'll also bring:

• Force of personality. You move people and things. You don't wait for permission to own a problem, and you don't let organisational drag become an excuse for inaction.
• Crazy ambition. You're not here for a tidy career step. You want to build something that matters, at a scale most people never touch, and you're impatient to start.
• A builder's instinct in an AI world. You don't just use the new tools, you invent with them. You see where agentic AI changes what's possible and you go make it real.
• Quantitative intuition. Fluent in the numbers, and faster to sense when one is wrong. You reason from first principles, not from a model you don't understand.
• Clarity under ambiguity. You hold open-ended problems without freezing and land the answer crisply, to people making nine-figure calls.
• Judgment. Your analysis stays honest when the answer is inconvenient, and discreet when it's sensitive.
• You do not need finance experience. No finance degree, no FP&A, no banking, no specific tool. We'll teach you the finance. We can't teach the thinking — so we don't try.

This is the same problem set you solved at the partner's side on a BCG, McKinsey, or Bain case team — except you own the recommendation, you live with the outcome, and you're not handing the deck to someone else to execute. Consultants, bankers, investors, founders, engineers, and standout generalists have all thrived here. The common thread is horsepower, not pedigree.

Levelling

• Analyst (~0–4 yrs): own analyses and models end-to-end with senior guidance, and scale your scope fast.  
• Manager (~4–8 yrs): own whole decision areas and cross-functional projects, set the approach, and partner directly with the CFO.

Experience matters less than the thinking. Unsure which you are? Apply — we'll figure it out together

Additional Information

We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles, while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community, we drive innovation, strengthen connections, and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best, while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships.