Chief Financial Officer (m/f/d)

Academic Key; München; Hybrid; EUR 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Academic Key, headquartered in Munich, seeks a Chief Financial Officer (m/f/d) to own the finance function end-to-end in a fast-scaling Financial Services firm. You will be responsible for accounting, controlling, reporting, tax, and the yearly statements, while building a robust, automated finance backbone.

You will lead the finance team, drive performance, and shape the company’s financial strategy. You will oversee planning, budgeting, forecasting, and cash management, ensuring runway and

Qualifications

• Strong degree in finance, business, or analytical field.
• Professional qualification (Steuerberater, ACCA, CPA) or audit background is a plus.
• Proven track record in high-performance settings; three exceptional years beat ten average ones.
• Experience with fast-scaling company, top-tier consultancy, investment banking, or private equity.
• Minimum of three annual closes under your own responsibility, with team, deadlines, and sign-off.
• Deep command of accounting and reporting under HGB; cash-flow and scenario modelling expertise.
• Experience with modern ERP tooling (DATEV, SAP) and AI-enabled processes.

Responsibilities

• Own the finance function end-to-end: accounting, controlling, reporting, tax, and annual statements.
• Lead the finance team from the ground up and drive development.
• Scale the finance backbone: systems, processes, controls, forecasting.
• Own forward view: planning, budgeting, forecasting, track cash and runway.
• Oversee compensation, performance reviews, and people operations.
• Own risk, compliance, and external relationships (auditors, tax advisors, banks).
• Expand with new deals, business units, and cross-border growth.

Skills

Finance leadership

HGB accounting

Cash flow modelling

Forecasting

Team building

English proficiency

German language

Education

Finance degree

Tools

DATEV

SAP

AI tools

Job description

Advise. Invest. Build. Meet ALAIKA — a new kind of Financial Services firm — globally scaling, headquartered in Munich. The work is hard. The bar is high. You own the finance function end-to-end, build the automated backbone a scaling firm runs on, and thrive in it.

About ALAIKA

At ALAIKA, our vision is to build the future of Financial Services with three brands under one roof — Advisory (Strategy Consulting), Capital (Private Equity), Building (Company Builder). Right now, we are in the midst of building our trojan horse ALAIKA Advisory. The ambition: building the leading Financial-Services-specific entrepreneurial holding — Fortune 500 access, PE discipline, Silicon Valley technology-depth and thinking. Three networks that compound and multiply. One industry. Financial Services. Nothing else. One focus. The intersection of business and technology — across Strategic Transformations, AI & Data Intelligence, and Cybersecurity. One goal. Being the go-to partner for the world's leading Fortune 500 financial services companies — and the ones we might help build into that. Founded in October 2022 by Johanna von Geyr (build-up and led Financial Services Practice for a NASDAQ-listed strategy consultancy) and Harald Braunstein (serial entrepreneur with exits incl. IPO), we bring together deep functional domain expertise and networks in global Financial Services, with a proven track record in building, scaling, and investing in leading software product companies.

Curious what ALAIKA is all about? Explore our website and introduction deck.

Chief Financial Officer (m/f/d)

Alaika · München, Bavaria

Abroad München, Bavaria Link validated

The role and what you will work on

Own

Own the finance function end-to-end. Accounting, controlling, reporting, tax, and the annual financial statements — and the judgement behind them. The numbers are yours: accurate, on time, founder-ready, and built to help the business decide.

Lead

Build the finance team from the ground up. Hire, steer, develop. Multiply the output of everyone in it, not just your own.

Build

We're scaling fast, and the finance backbone has to scale with us: systems, processes, controls, forecasting. Build a genuinely automated operation, not a manual one held together by effort. You don't inherit a finished machine — you build it.

Steer

Own the forward view: planning, budgeting, forecasting. Track cash, runway, and burn. You see what's coming and steer for it.

People

Own the systems that pay and grow the team: compensation, bonus structures, performance reviews, the people operation behind them. In a firm that hires the best, how you reward them is a competitive weapon. You build it, you make it work.

Govern

Own risk, compliance, and controls as the firm scales across borders. Own the external relationships that come with them: auditors, tax advisors, banks, authorities.

Expand

The role scales with the firm. New deals, new business units, new ground — you grow with it, and the finance backbone becomes the platform the whole firm builds on.

What you bring

• Background: Strong degree in finance, business, or a comparably analytical field.
• A professional qualification (Steuerberater, ACCA, CPA) or an audit background is a plus.
• A track record that speaks for itself matters more.
• Experience: Demonstrated experience in high-performance settings: fast-scaling company, top-tier consultancy, investment banking, or private equity. We don't count years, we count what you can run. Three exceptional years beat ten average ones.
• Functional Experience. A minimum of three annual closes under your own responsibility, including the team, deadlines, and sign-off.
• Finance Craft. Deep command of accounting and reporting under HGB. Real strength in controlling and corporate finance — cash-flow and scenario modelling, month- and year-end close.
• People & Comp. You have designed and run compensation packages and performance-review systems before — not just administered them. You know how to pay people in a way that attracts and keeps the best.
• Systems. Hands-on with modern finance and ERP tooling (DATEV, SAP, or comparable), and fluent in using AI to do the work faster and cleaner. You build clean processes instead of working around messy ones, and automate everything that should be.
• Lead. You've built and grown teams before — hired, developed, and made the hard calls. And you're an equal to founders, management, and department heads: clear, direct, trusted in the room.
• Languages. Fluent in English and German. Additional languages are a plus.
• When you are a fit "Show me an athlete who did well academically. An athlete because they know what it takes to win and they have had to experience loss." — Kenneth C. Griffin, Founder of Citadel
• You will work alongside intrinsically driven people who do "what it takes" — and you hold your own among them. You run the finance and operating backbone yourself, pulling the founders in only when it truly matters. Not a talker — a doer who makes things work.

Academic Key will never request login credentials or application fees for this role.