Finance Controller

Pentatonic; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Pentatonic is seeking a Finance Controller to take ownership of a finance function ready for its next growth phase. You will manage one Finance Associate and be hands-on, reviewing, building, and fixing processes as needed.

Reports to the CEO, you will own month-end close, cash forecasting, and board reporting; design controls, coordinate with HR on payroll-adjacent numbers, and lead investor reporting and fundraising narratives.

Qualifications

• Qualified accountant with ACA/ACCA/CIMA or equivalent.
• Experience building/leading a finance function in scale-up/ SME.
• Experience presenting to Board and investors.
• Ability to design and implement financial controls.
• Strong systems experience and ability to improve the finance stack.

Responsibilities

• Own month-end close, management accounts, and Board reporting.
• Maintain cash flow forecast and runway insights.
• Take ownership of audit and year-end process.
• Design and implement controls and process improvements.
• Coordinate payroll-adjacent finance touchpoints with HR.
• Prepare investor reporting and fundraising narratives.
• Challenge spend and investment decisions with data.
• Modernise the finance stack and tools.
• Manage and develop the Finance Associate.

Skills

ACA/ACCA/CIMA

Scale-up exp

Board reporting

Systems optimization

Stakeholder comms

Bias to action

Tools

Excel

ERP systems

Job description

North London, SouthEast N1, United Kingdom

Full-time Permanent Entry Level

Posted 09 Sep 2026

Description

Role Overview

Pentatonic is looking for a Finance Controller to take ownership of a function that's ready for its next stage of growth. Our Fractional FD is completing this year's year-end accounts, and we're now looking for someone to build on that foundation — strengthening processes, controls and reporting as the business scales.

You’ll manage one Finance Associate. That's the team. You need to be someone who can do the work yourself, not just direct it, reviewing, building, and fixing in equal measure.

Key Responsibilities

• Own month-end close, management accounts, and Board reporting from day one
• Build and maintain the cash flow forecast, this business needs to know its runway at all times
• Take full ownership of the audit and year-end process going forward, picking up from the fractional FD's handover
• Design and implement controls where none currently exist, reconciliations, approval processes, version control on models
• Manage payroll-adjacent finance touchpoints in coordination with HR (payroll itself sits with HR, but FC owns the numbers that feed it)
• Prepare investor reporting and support fundraising financial narratives
• Challenge spend, hiring business cases, and investment decisions with data, not vibes
• Modernise the finance stack where legacy tools are slowing things down
• Manage and develop the Finance Associate

What You’ll Need

• Qualified accountant (ACA/ACCA/CIMA or equivalent)
• Proven experience in a scale‑up or SME environment where you’ve built a finance function from a messy starting point, not just maintained an existing one
• Comfortable being the most senior finance person in the building day-to-day, with limited support
• Strong systems background, able to assess and improve the finance stack, not just work within it
• Confident presenting to Board and investors, and comfortable delivering uncomfortable truths early
• A bias to action over process for its own sake

What Success Looks Like in the First 6 Months

• Clean handover from interim FC fully absorbed, no dropped threads on the year-end audit
• Cash forecasting is reliable and trusted by leadership
• Basic controls in place where there were previously none
• Board packs are accurate, on time, and don't need translating by someone else

Reporting Line

Reports to CEO. Manages 1 Finance Associate.

Values in Action

The Finance Controller is expected to model and embed Pentatonic's values, both within finance and across the wider business.

Master the FundamentalsWe operate to a consistently high standard—but nothing is fixed. Excellence is always evolving.

Build finance foundations that are rock-solid—cash forecasting, controls, reporting—while treating every process as open to improvement.Hold finance outputs to a consistently high standard, and keep raising that bar as the business scales.Simplify and strengthen inherited processes rather than layering complexity on top of them.

Obsess the DetailsEvery pixel, sentence, and spreadsheet is a reflection of us.

Deliver Board packs, forecasts and models that are accurate to the last cell—the details are where credibility is won or lost.Catch the small errors before they become big problems: reconciliations, assumptions, version control.Treat every output—internal or investor-facing—as a reflection of Pentatonic's standards.

You Are Where You AreYou represent Pentatonic in every room.

Show up to Leadership meetings, investor calls and team conversations with the same energy: curious, kind, and confident.Be a visible, approachable presence across the business—finance as a partner, not a gatekeeper.Represent the company's numbers with honesty and composure, whatever the news.

Legacy Has LimitsRespect the past, but don't be ruled by it.

Question inherited assumptions in budgets, forecasts and ways of working—\"how it's always‑been done\" isn't a justification.Modernise the finance stack and processes where legacy tools or habits are slowing the business down.Help the leadership team make decisions based on where the business is going, not where it's been.

Break Codes, HonourablyWe do hard things—without blame or politics.

Deliver constructive challenge to the CEO, founders and Board on performance, spend and priorities—directly and without politics.Make hard calls on cost, investment and resourcing with transparency and care for the people affected.Keep the trust of investors, auditors and the team while pushing for change.

Intuition is Feeling, Data is FactInstinct is a starting point—we ground decisions in data.

Ground every recommendation—runway, hiring, pricing, investment—in evidence, not gut feel.Test the assumptions behind business cases and forecasts, ensuring they're data-backed and appropriately stretching.Give the leadership team the numbers they need to move fast with confidence.

We Are StorytellersIf it doesn't land, it doesn't lead to change.

Translate complex financials into clear narratives the founders, Board and team can act on—no jargon, no fog.Make cash, runway and performance stories that land: what's happening, why, and what we do next.Equip the founders with financial narratives that hold up in front of investors.

Inspire Bravery with BraveryProgress comes from courage—and a little chaos.

Go first: surface uncomfortable truths about cash, performance or plans before they become crises.Back bold commercial ideas with rigorous financial thinking, rather than defaulting to \"no.\"Create the financial confidence for the business to take smart risks.