Chief Financial Officer Appointment for a SaaS Business
Chief Financial Officer Appointment for a SaaS Business
Client: Scaling SaaS Business
Sector: Software as a Service
Turnover: £45m
Role: Chief Financial Officer
The Brief
The business had scaled rapidly to £45m in recurring revenue, supported by strong commercial growth.
However, board confidence in financial reporting was weakening. Forecast variance had reached 15%, profitability visibility lacked clarity, and leadership decisions were increasingly being made without a trusted financial baseline.
The brief was to appoint a Chief Financial Officer who could restore trust in the numbers, strengthen reporting discipline, and build a more reliable foundation for decision-making and investor engagement.
The Challenge
This was not a product problem or a demand problem. Growth was strong. The issue was financial structure and reporting discipline.
The appointment required:
🔹 A CFO with strong SaaS understanding and recurring revenue experience
🔹 The ability to reduce forecast variance through cadence and discipline, not complexity
🔹 Credibility at board level and confidence operating under scrutiny
🔹 A leader able to improve margin visibility and embed forward-looking forecasting
The hire needed to bring structure without slowing momentum.
Our Solution
We focused on CFOs who had operated in scaling SaaS environments where reporting needed to mature quickly to match the pace of growth.
Rather than prioritising technical output alone, assessment centred on the ability to introduce cadence: consistent commercial challenge, clearer product-level margin visibility, and rolling forecast discipline.
The process was designed to identify a finance leader who could raise reporting quality while remaining commercially aligned to the business.
The Outcome
Once appointed, the CFO focused first on cadence rather than dashboards.
Weekly commercial challenge sessions were introduced. Product-level margin visibility was strengthened. Rolling forecast discipline was embedded.
Within six months, forecast variance reduced from 15% to 6%.
Board confidence improved, investor discussions regained clarity, and decision-making became more grounded in trusted information.
The business now operates with a stronger financial foundation that supports growth with sharper visibility and control.
