Fractional CFO

Fractional CFO

About Eightx

We are the fractional CFO and finance department for fast-growing ecommerce and consumer brands in the US, Canada, the UK, Europe and Australia, mostly doing $3M to $150M in revenue. Our HQ and a managing partner are in Melbourne, and our team works across Canada, the US, England, Switzerland, India and the Philippines.

We have one goal for every client: build a Bankable Brand. That is a business whose profit, cash and forecasts hold up when a lender, an investor, a buyer or the board tests them.

As you might expect of a finance company, we work really hard when we need to, but we don't work hard just for the sake of it. We don't miss our kids' concerts, we work out during the day, and we usually sign off early on Fridays.

About the position

We're not looking for the CFO who hands in a P&L and walks the founder through last month's results. We're looking for one or two people who will help our clients build enterprise value, and who founders trust enough to call first when something goes wrong.

If you're good, you already know this: Value = Earnings x Multiple. Multiple = Growth + Quality - Risk.

$3M of EBITDA at 5x is a $15M business. $5M at 8x is $40M. Profit went up $2M. Value went up $25M.

Most finance people work hard on earnings and put far less effort into the multiple. You will work on both:

• Grow earnings. Contribution margin by channel and SKU, how much they can profitably spend on ads, pricing, inventory and cash.
• Grow the right way. Durable, organic growth with healthy customer economics, not growth bought by pouring money into Meta.
• Prove the quality of their earnings. Provable, contractual, repeatable. Good LTV, good margins. Ideally, economics in the top quartile of their industry.
• Take out risk. Customer, channel and supplier concentration, a founder who approves everything, books a buyer can't verify. Each one is a discount on the multiple.

You will be half finance expert, half coach. You'll carry a portfolio of about 10 clients at full load (built up as you onboard), with senior and junior analysts building the models and our accounting team, led by our Accounting Services Director, owning the close. You'll be trained and led directly by Matt.

Role scorecard (how we measure you)

• Client retention across your portfolio
• Client NPS and "would you call your CFO first?" feedback
• Weekly meetings held with every client (target: 100%)
• Same-day replies to clients (we guarantee this to clients and pay them if we miss it)
• Onboarding milestones hit on time for every new client (day 2, 5, 7 and 10 below)
• Movement on each client's Bankable Brand Scorecard, quarter over quarter

What success looks like

Founders call you first. They make their big calls (spend, inventory, hiring, funding) with a number behind them, and they need you less over time because they've learned to decide well. Every client in your portfolio is measurably more bankable after a year: cleaner books, a model they trust, a weekly rhythm that runs, and less risk a buyer or lender would discount.

ONE THING: make every founder in your portfolio better at deciding, with numbers they trust.

First 3 month objective

Take over a portfolio of clients, run the full onboarding on each new client, and have the weekly rhythm running with every founder you serve.

What you will do

Your first 10 days with every new client

• Day 2: a profit tracker the founder can open every day
• Day 5: the main constraint, named and sized
• Day 7: the financial model
• Day 10: the full Growth Economics Audit, walked through with the founder

Over the next eight weeks you build the full financial plan: revenue, COGS and purchasing, payroll and overheads, cash, budget, balance sheet, then a multi-year plan. By week twelve the client has department scorecards and a capital allocation framework, and the rhythm is running.

Primary objectives (20% big rocks)

• See: map the funnel from traffic to repeat customer with the money that survives each step, build a one-page scorecard of the three or four numbers that decide the year, and name the risks.
• Decide: find the one constraint holding the business back, and put money and people where that constraint is, with a number behind every big yes. Keep a three-year model that's updated, not written once.
• Align: every number that matters gets one owner, every department head can state their quarterly goal as a number, and the rhythm runs (the weekly meeting, the monthly review, the quarter, the year).
• Prepare clients for lenders, investors, due diligence and exits, and sit in the room when those conversations happen.

Regular work activities (80%)

• A weekly working session with each founder, plus the scorecard review: what's red, who owns it, what changes this week
• Monthly review of the close and the model, and a clear read on cash
• Decisions on the big questions: ad spend ceilings, inventory buys, hires, funding
• When a number moves the wrong way: measure it, diagnose it, model the options and help the founder decide. An accountant stops after "measure". You don't.
• Review and direct the work of the analysts and accountants on your clients
• Same-day replies to client messages

As needed

• Interim CFO placements (typically 3 to 6 months while a client hires full-time)
• Lender underwriting calls, investor updates, board meetings, data rooms and quality of earnings prep
• Help on sales calls and client proposals when a prospect needs to meet their CFO

The other half of the job: trust

You can be completely right and still get ignored. Founders don't act on analysis. They act on people they trust. We've read the books and reviewed hundreds of our own client calls to see where our CFOs succeed and where they fall down. We're CFOs, so of course it's an equation:

Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-orientation

• Credibility. You're at the top of the field in finance, modelling, accounting and strategy. We test it in hiring.
• Reliability. You do what you said you'd do and hand things in on time. If something will be late, you say so before it's late. The fastest way to lose a client here is to skip the weekly meeting.
• Intimacy. If this word scares you, this job isn't for you. Be warm, caring and genuinely curious about the founder. Some weeks it'll feel like a therapy session.
• Self-orientation. It divides everything above it. If you're focused on looking smart, protecting your hours or winning the argument, trust shrinks. We want servant leaders.

Matt's version: "I'm not teaching you finance. You should already know how to talk to a lender. What separates CFOs here is client management: how you empathize with someone."

What you must have

• 10+ years in finance, including time as a CFO, VP Finance or head of FP&A in a growth company, or a PE, investment banking or transaction advisory background plus real operating experience
• Strong three-statement, driver-based modelling you can explain to someone who hates spreadsheets
• You've sat across the table from lenders, investors or acquirers: a raise, a refinance, a quality of earnings review, due diligence or an exit
• You understand what drives a multiple, and you've helped a business improve one
• Fluent business English, spoken and written