Finance Manager

ABOUT AVANT ARTE
Avant Arte wants to make art radically more accessible for a new generation.
The company began as a cult blog of contemporary artists, initially inspired through rap lyrics and hip-hop album covers. That blog grew organically into the world’s largest and most engaged online art community, with more than 2 million of their followers under the age of 35.

The company collaborates with iconic contemporary artists like Jenny Holzer, Cai Guo-Qiang, Claire Tabouret and the Chapman brothers, making their work more accessible to younger collectors through sculpture editions, print editions and unique works on paper. And they have built a highly engaged community of next-generation art collectors, which means Avant Arte’s artist launches are heavily oversubscribed, with many behaving more like fashion drops, selling out in under 30 seconds.

The company’s vision is to inspire a generation of millions of young people who love art like they love music and who collect works like they build their wardrobe.

We’re currently a team of 20, split between London and Amsterdam, looking to scale to 40+ over the next 9 months. This is a great opportunity to join a highly successful early stage business at a pivotal moment in our growth, where you will have impact from day one. As the first finance hire, you will be central to helping define and build Avant Arte’s finance processes, growth forecasting, reporting & financially-informed decision making as we scale.

OUR CULTURE
We’re a small team with really big ambitions, both for what we want to achieve and also the environment we’re building. We want to create a company that remains thoughtful as we scale and tries to be genuinely progressive in how we operate; we want people to really own what they do and be given the autonomy and freedom to make mistakes, learn, and create something meaningful. We all work incredibly hard because we really care about what Avant Arte is here to do – we’re looking for exceptional people who are proactive, hungry to learn, and want to put their pride in our collective achievements.

We know that creating an inclusive environment that promotes and values diversity is critical if we want to build something with impact and meaning. We believe that having diversity in age, background, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, ethnicity, and perspective will make us an infinitely better company. And it is particularly vital if we are going to build a roster of artists and community of collectors that are representative of contemporary art and of the wider world today.

WHAT WE NEED
We’re looking for a highly talented, commercially astute Finance Manager with a proactive mindset to join our London team. Working closely with our Head of Business Operations and collaboratively with teams across the business, you will be responsible for managing, optimising and improving the end-to-end finance processes for Avant Arte.

We really do encourage everyone to proactively step outside of their job description if you see something that could be improved but the core of your role will involve:

• Financial forecasting and planning: Owning and maintaining financial forecasts for the business, working closely with divisional leads on project pipeline planning, departmental and project-level budgeting

• Financial analysis: Leading on analyses including business-wide cost-base reviews and project variance analyses that drive decision making; supporting on the commercial analysis of new business models and evaluation of opportunities for the company

• Internal and external financial reporting: leading preparation of monthly management accounts; contributing to our investor updates and internal monthly and quarterly business performance reviews

• Day-to-day finance processes: Managing all day-to-day finance processes including payments and invoicing (working closely with our external bookkeeper) and supporting business compliance

The main skills we’re looking for are:

• Commercial mindset: you’re able to carry out high fidelity commercial diligence on new models, projects and initiatives; you can also deliver clarity and actionable insights into the drivers of all aspects of our current financial performance

• Relationship building and a collaborative approach: you have the ability to build relationships with a range of different people, building trust easily and establishing finance as an enabler of strategic decision making across different teams

• Strong analytical skills and attention to detail: you’re a whiz with Excel and would be able to use your analytical skills and sweating of the details to accurately predict the financial performance of our business

• You’re incredibly organised and well structured: you’re able to introduce systems and processes that prepare our finance function for our next stage of growth

We think you’ll probably have:

• An accounting qualification (ACA or ACCA or CIMA)
• Experience working for a fast-growing startup or online marketplace would be a plus

BENEFITS
You’ll get to be part of building one of the fastest growing tech companies in culture, backed by leading early investors in companies like Skype, Farfetch, Glossier & Facebook
We offer competitive salary, equity & holiday allowance, as well as flexible working hours
We have a learning & development budget for every person at the company