Finance Lead (w/d/m)

LIFTED; Berlin; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Free studio membership

Direct coaching by founder

Office at Senefelder Platz

Team events

Job summary

LIFTED is building a finance function in Berlin to support rapid growth across six studios with plans for more locations. This role leads finance operations, planning, reporting, and financing while shaping HR admin and team-building as the company scales.

You’ll work directly with the founder to craft business cases for new sites, manage month-end processes, and ensure robust financial controls in a fast-paced startup environment with office presence in Berlin.

Qualifications

• Around 4–6 years in finance, including startup or scale-up experience.
• Strong academic background in business, finance or a similar field.
• Experience with month-end closes and working with an external tax firm.
• Experience building or rebuilding a planning model in spreadsheets.
• Sound understanding of account coding.
• You want to understand how a studio makes money and use numbers to shape decisions.
• Fluent German, English C1.
• You live in Berlin or are moving here and work with us in the office.
• Hands-on with getting-things-done mentality.

Responsibilities

• Finance ops: lead the finance trainee, manage receipts, invoices, account coding, payments and payroll.
• Planning and liquidity: own the planning model, monthly liquidity, budget, forecasts and scenarios; value new locations.
• Reporting: set up monthly management reporting for leadership meetings.
• Financing: prepare financing and lead conversations with financing partners over time.
• HR admin: handle employee data and contracts (a few hours a month).
• Team: build the finance team and help decide when HR needs its own role.

Skills

Finance experience

Startup/scale-up

Planning & budgeting

Month-end close

Tax cooperation

German-English bilingual

Education

Business/Finance degree

Tools

DATEV

SKR03

MOSS

Helu

Job description

LIFTED is a strength training company from Berlin. We run six studios across the city and plan to have 20 by the end of 2027, with Munich, Hamburg, Cologne and Düsseldorf next. Our goal is to become the largest fitness company in Europe. Before LIFTED, the founding team helped build and scale BEAT81. Today we’re profitable and owner-led.

Why this role exists

Today Carl, one of the founders, runs finance alongside managing the company, with bookkeeping at an external tax firm. You take this over and build out the finance function.

What you own

• Finance ops. You lead our finance trainee, who handles receipts, invoices and account coding based on clear rules. You review samples, resolve new cases and adapt the rules. You also manage payments, payroll and the month-end and year-end close with our tax firm.

• Planning and liquidity. You own our planning model, plan liquidity monthly, and run the annual budget, forecasts and scenarios. Before we sign a new location, you build its business case and add it to the planning model.

• Reporting. You set up monthly management reporting that we use in the management meeting.

• Financing. You prepare our financing and, over time, lead parts of the conversations with our financing partners.

• HR admin. You handle employee data and contracts. Right now that’s a few hours a month.

• Team. You build the finance team and help us decide when HR needs its own role.

How we measure success

• After 3 months, you’ve taken over finance from Carl, from daily operations and HR admin to planning and liquidity.

• After 6 months, management reporting runs every month. You’ve built the business cases for the locations we signed in that time and prepared your first financing.

• After 12 months, you run the annual budget, align it with the team leads and review it with us every quarter. You prepare our financing end to end and lead parts of the conversations with our financing partners yourself.

What you bring

You might have done most of this before, or you’re ready to grow into it.

• Around 4–6 years in finance, including experience at a startup or scale-up

• A strong academic background in business, finance or a similar field

• Experience with month-end closes and working with an external tax firm

• Experience building or fundamentally rebuilding a planning model in spreadsheets

• Sound understanding of account coding

• You want to understand how a studio makes money and use the numbers to shape decisions with us

• Fluent German, English C1

• You live in Berlin or are moving here, and work with us in the office

• Hands‑on with getting-things-done mentality

Nice to have

• Experience in a fast-growing business with multiple locations

• Experience preparing financing, for example bank or development loans

• Experience with SKR03, DATEV, Moss, Helu or similar tools

• First leadership experience

What we offer

• The chance to build our finance team

• You work directly with Carl, who coaches you on the business side, from location decisions to financing

• A spacious and bright office at Senefelder Platz, between Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg

• Free, unlimited membership at all LIFTED studios

• Team events like padel and BBQs