Excess Baggage is an international, multi-entity travel retail business with more than 70 stores across airports and rail stations in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Canada. Around 500 people work across our sites, and we're growing.
We're looking for a Chief Financial Officer to take ownership of our financial strategy, structure and external relationships, and shape how the business manages money as it scales internationally.
If you're energised by variety, comfortable at SME pace, and want to build something rather than maintain it, we'd like to hear from you.
What You'll Do
Financial leadership & department development
- Take overall ownership of financial management for the business with international operations
- Build and develop the accounts department - structure, capability and process
- Modernise finance operations: systems, controls, reporting and ways of working, including where automation and AI can improve the function
- Strengthen forecasting and budgeting discipline across the business
Corporate structure & treasury
- Establish and manage legal entity structures for new tenders and contracts
- Oversee banking relationships, including opening new accounts as we expand into new markets
- Manage company and VAT registrations for new territories and contracts
- Oversee payments to foreign banks and multi-currency management
- Manage the relationship with our external accountancy provider, reviewing monthly management data and assessing fit as we scale
Commercial & external representation
- Represent the business at senior commercial level in negotiations - for example, new airport or transport-hub contracts
- Lead discussions with banks on new facilities and relationships
- Engage directly with government and regulatory bodies where required
- Represent the company independently and confidently in high-level discussions
Strategic & forward focus
- Act as a sounding board to the Senior Management Team on the financial implications of growth, new contracts and new markets
- Keep the business ahead of the curve on financial technology and AI-enabled finance tools
- Bring creativity and commercial pragmatism to problem-solving not just controls and compliance
What We're Looking For
- A proven CFO, or a senior Finance Director/Head of Finance ready to step up, within an SME context, ideally £20m–£100m turnover. Big-corporate-only backgrounds are unlikely to be the right fit
- Experience of international operations, multi-currency, multi-entity structures and cross-border banking
- A track record of building or scaling a finance function
- Experience negotiating and representing a business externally with banks, commercial partners, or government/regulatory bodies
- Hands-on and willing to roll up your sleeves - comfortable close to the detail as well as the strategy
- Creative and commercially minded, balancing financial rigour with pragmatism
- Focused, resilient and comfortable holding your own in high-level external negotiations
- Genuinely curious about where finance and technology - including AI - are heading, and how that applies to a business of this size
- A natural fit for SME life - broad-based, adaptable and energised by variety rather than narrow specialism
A competitive salary, reflective of the seniority of this role and the calibre of person we're looking for - discussed at first conversation.
If this sounds like your kind of challenge, we'd love to hear from you.
We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates.
