Chief Financial Officer

Context

For one of our clients, a private equity–owned distributor of building materials, we are currently seeking to appoint a Chief Financial Officer who will work in close partnership with the CEO and shareholders to co-steer the next phase of growth of the company.

Headquartered in Brussels, the business employs approximately 100–150 people and generates annual revenues of €50–100 million. The group was recently acquired by an entrepreneurial, long-term-oriented investment holding which ambitions to create one of the leading players in its segment and to pursue international expansion via buy-and-build.

Several performance-improvement initiatives have already been launched to establish a strong operational and financial foundation to support this development. The CFO will play a key role in aligning financial and strategic objectives, identify and implement finance performance initiatives and setup a best in class department.

Role and Responsibilities

As part of the board, the CFO drives the entire financial engine and owns all financial, legal, fiscal, and administrative aspects of the business: P&L and balance sheet management, accounting, reporting, taxation, budgeting, cash-flow planning, cash management, and business intelligence.

The CFO’s core targets and responsibilities include:

Drive performance & financial leadership

• Own the P&L and balance sheet, pushing profitable growth, cash generation, and working-capital optimization.
• Lead budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and cash-flow management with precision and speed.
• Credit management: customer account follow-up, risk analysis, and collection monitoring.
• Manage treasury, banking relationships, liquidity, solvency, covenants, and refinancing when needed.

Create value & shape strategy

• Build and execute the value-creation plan.
• Act as the CEO’s strategic partner in developing the leadership team and steering the company’s direction.
• Support Board and shareholder reporting and assess/execute add-on acquisitions.

Scale and professionalize the organization

• Lead and elevate the finance function, support IT and HR across all sites.
• Strengthen people, processes, and systems to enable rapid scale-up.
• Champion operational excellence, cost discipline, and data-driven decision-making.
• Oversee accurate closings, group reporting, compliance, and tax matters.
• Maintain strong ties with auditors, tax authorities, legal advisors, and other key partners.
• Support the successful rollout of new systems, including the new ERP.

Enable change & accelerate growth

• Lead critical transformation projects that unlock the next level of growth.
• Embed a culture of analytical thinking, accountability, and proactive decision-making across
• the company.

Profile

The ideal candidate is an entrepreneurial, hands-on finance leader with a strong academic background. He or she will have broad end-to-end financial leadership experience, ideally gained in a distribution or low margin businesses. Cash management, factoring, NWC optimization, procurement and experience with post-merger integrations are considered a plus. Ideally trained in a well-structured multinational environment and/or advisory company, the CFO will have since gained firsthand experience professionalizing finance and operations in a dynamic mid-market company.

The new CFO is sharp, analytical, and relentlessly fact-driven, brings clarity, structure, discipline, and calm to the organization. Curious by nature, he or she will dig deep to truly understand the business and challenge both the management team and the wider organization and continuously identify and deliver improvement opportunities.

The CFO combines strong intellect with high emotional intelligence and excellent communication skills. They enjoy bringing people along through change and are persuasive both through expertise and personal presence.

Most important selection criteria:

• Entrepreneurial mindset with real ownership – a hands-on professional who stands fully behind results, separates true priorities from noise, and takes charge when urgency calls.
• Fluent in Dutch, French, and English (minimum requirement).
• Proven track record in professionalizing organizations and driving meaningful, sustained change.
• Experience operating in a fast-moving and/or private equity backed environments, with demanding performance expectations, or within leading advisory firms (Big4) are considered a strong plus.