Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Iron Fuel Technology; Eindhoven; Hybrid; EUR 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Office in Eindhoven

Equity participation

Job summary

Rift seeks a Chief of Staff to act as a close partner to the CEO, managing investor readiness, equity narrative, and Series C execution. You will lead strategic initiatives, shape growth strategy, and work across finance and marketing to ensure alignment and end-to-end execution.

The role focuses on establishing institutional readiness and strong governance across a multi-entity organization, with significant autonomy and senior stakeholder interaction in a fast-moving scale-up.

Qualifications

• You have at least 6 years working experience in energy, infra, or related growth businesses.
• Strong strategic thinking and investor communication.
• Experience with governance, financial reporting, and capital strategy.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end Series C prep and execution (€150M target).
• Shape the investor narrative and equity story for institutional investors.
• Coordinate with legal, IR, banks, and advisory teams across the company.
• Drive governance maturity, risk management, and cash-flow planning.

Job description

We are seeking an exceptional Chief of Staffto act as the CEO’s, Mark, closest partner. You are the internal owner ofinvestor readiness, equity story, and Series C execution. You are the leader of strategic initiatives. You will lead the development and execution of our growth strategy, and working closely with finance and marketing. You don’t just coordinate projects, but drive them end-to-end. You will define the total equity narrative, assess whether RIFT meets institutional infrastructure quality standards, and actively close gaps across leadership, business model, governance, and commercial execution. You act as a strategic partner to internal and external stakeholders, including our institutional shareholder base.

We are Rift | Let’s make the impossible possible by decarbonizing industrial heat using the Iron Fuel Technology

RIFT develops and deploys Iron Fuel Technology to decarbonise industrial heat. After years of technology development and pilots, the company has secured substantial capital and is now moving into commercial deployment. We have secured €114 million in financing à We’ve raised €114 million to scale Iron Fuel - RIFT. The first large scale project is progressing toward Final Investment Decision, while preparation for the next equity phase is already underway.

The strategic opportunity

The Chief of Staff provides strategic leadership as the company transitions from a scale-up to an industrial-scale organization, helping shape a more mature organisational structure and helping prepare the business for key milestones, including the upcoming Final Investment Decision (FID).

The core emphasis of the position is on ensuring full institutional readiness and strategic commercial leadership. This includes aligning strategic priorities, strengthening governance frameworks, enhancing financial reporting and transparency, and refining the overall investor narrative. The objective is to ensure that all structural, operational, and capital-related prerequisites are firmly in place before entering the market.

The Chief of Staff will assume responsibility for investor positioning and capital strategy within a capital-intensive, multi-entity organization that is fundamentally strong and well-supported, yet not fully institutionalized. A critical aspect of the mandate is to create clarity, discipline, and alignment across entities and stakeholders to meet the standards expected by institutional investors.

The role carries substantial autonomy and accountability, with a clear strategic commercial and consulting focus and focus on establishing the capital foundations necessary to support long-term industrial scale-up and sustainable growth.

Your main responsiblities

Serie C strategy & execution

• Own the end-to-end preparation and execution of the€150M Series C round

• Define fundraising milestones, readiness criteria, and internal timeline

• Coordinate all advisors (legal, financial, IR, banks) andinternal and external stakeholders, RVC and Investment meetings

• Lead data room preparation, diligence processes, and investor Q&A

Investor story & equity narrative

• Define and continuously refine RIFT’stotal equity story

• Ensure asingle, coherent narrativeacross pitch decks, models, board materials, and external communication

Commercial and strategic leadership and business partnering

• Strategic commercial traction

• Business model robustness

• Leadership

• Stakeholdermanagement with legal, financial, IR, banks, investors

Ensure RIFT meets expectations on:

• Governance and decision-making maturity

• Risk management and downside protection

• Cash-flow predictability and asset quality

• Long-term platform and portfolio logic

• Translate investor expectations into concrete internal requirements

You manage and substantiate the investment thesis behind equity returns across different scenarios, entry valuation, value drivers, exit options and attractiveness of long-term ownership.

In addition, you assess whether the business model’s repeatability and capital efficiency support value creation and rigorously test assumptions from an institutional investor’s perspective. This role combines operational excellence with high-level strategic thinking and a consulting mindset.

Rift’s Chief Strategy Officer

You have at least 6 years working experience, preferred by evaluating large-scale energy or infrastructure, energy or project finance. Relevant experience in strategy consulting, investment banking, M&A, or infrastructure investing, who bring a strong strategic perspective on growth, capital allocation, and long-term value creation.

You can operate atinfrastructure-investor quality leveland execute inside a scale-up. Strong at structuring, diligence, and investor communication and strong financial and strategic intuition.

Stakeholdermanagment, you work hands-on with recruitment, strategy, commercial, finance, and operations teams toclose these gaps and to ensure succesfull series C.

Highly proactive and organized; you thrive when managing several overlapping timelines and know how to focus on what actually moves the needle.

A steep learning curve feels daunting: We move fast and use cutting-edge technology; you need to be an aggressive self-learner who can master new domains in days, not months.

Working at Rift’s great place to work!

Working at RIFT means being part of a dynamic, diverse, and driven team. At Rift, you have the opportunity to shape the future and immerse yourself in challenging projects.Furthermore you get:

• Competitive compensation - we want to attract and retain the best so we are offering a compensation package that aligns with that. The compensation package may include a long-term incentive plan or equity participation, ensuring strong alignment with the company’s long-term success.

• A great new office in the center of Eindhoven with more than 70 Rift colleagues/impact

• Grow in a growing company - there’s no better place to develop your talents and learn new skills. You make the impact for the future!

• Experienced entrepreneurs - work with experienced and dedicated entrepreneurs as part of an growing international team

• Energetic environment in a high performance and high intensity culture with passion, teamspirit and happiness at work. We scale rapidly and you can pick your own initiatives with high ownership and responsibility.

So this unique role combinesinvestor-level thinking,hands-on execution, andcompany-wide orchestration. This is not a comfort zone role. It’s for those who want to take ownership, push boundaries, and create measurable impact where it truly matters. So let’s make the difference and make the impossible, possible.

• Ervaringsniveau: Senior