Chief Financial Officer

Canonical is a leading provider of open source software and operating systems to the global enterprise and technology markets. Our platform, Ubuntu, is very widely used in breakthrough enterprise initiatives such as public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation and IoT. Our customers include the world's leading public cloud and silicon providers, and industry leaders in many sectors. The company is a pioneer of global distributed collaboration, with 1000+ colleagues in 70+ countries and very few office based roles. Teams meet two to four times yearly in person, in interesting locations around the world, to align on strategy and execution.

The company is founder led, profitable and growing. We are hiring a Chief Financial Officer, to partner with the most senior leaders of the business. The CFO will lead work across the organisation to achieve the rigorous reporting and governance expected of a public company, and guide us through an IPO. They will work with lines of business to provide high quality finance, budgeting, reporting, procurement, treasury, controls, accounting and investor relations.

Perhaps unusually we are looking for a leader who is insightful and passionate about the impact of open source in the world.

A finance leader who is also a software industry leader can articulate that impact to customers and their team, and will be better able to partner closely with both the CRO and the CEO. It is core to our mission that open source should enable companies to operate more efficiently, achieve more with less, aspire to greater velocity in their technology operations and innovate faster and with more focus. It will be important for our CFO to have a strong voice in how we demonstrate those benefits in our own operations, and to represent that with customers. Our ideal candidate will gain trust and have credibility with our sales and partner organisations, helping them to understand the dynamics and importance of profitability and sales efficiency while also helping them make the business case for Canonical open source with their prospects.

The successful candidate will:

Lead our finance strategy and team

• Guide the strategic and annual business planning cycle
• Educate the business to improve financial expertise
• Implement strong risk management process
• Cultivate passion for our products and customer focus
• Demonstrate and ensure operational excellence and continuous improvement
• Lead finance activities for capital structure and listing

Promote business partnering

• Partner with the CRO and our business development teams, including sales, channel, alliances, and field engineering
• Partner with marketing, exchanging insights, indicators and regular analysis
• Partner with our General Counsel and legal team, informing profit and global compliance matters
• Lead investor relations

Deliver operational finance

• Strengthen the finance team through high quality hiring
• Build a rigorous procurement capability, primarily for hardware, software and travel
• Build an efficient treasury capability for global currency and cash management
• Build organisational capability to ensure efficient core financial process delivery
• Establish and ensure a strong controls environment
• Enhance FP&A processes, tools and value add to the business
• Implement finance systems and integrate with other Canonical platforms
• Deliver world-class transparency and insights into data
• Automate processes and controls to improve efficiency and reduce risk
• Oversee relationships with auditors

Maintain compliance and structure

• Ensure global tax structure and transfer pricing agreements are fit for purpose
• Respond to changes in the international tax environment
• Comply with tax laws, rules and regulations in all jurisdictions where we operate
• Support the corporate structure for resilience and shareholder value
• Protect the value of Canonical intellectual property

Required experience

• Qualified professional accountant with Bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, business or scientific or numerate discipline
• Operational and leadership experience in high growth, multi currency/geography environments
• Experience leading teams through transformational change to maturity and outstanding performance
• Experience of GAAP and IFRS
• Experience in a software business

Additional experience we value

• Software engineering and architecture experience or skills
• Software industry insights on trends, strategy and competition
• Insight into open source history, dynamics, strategy and competition

What we offer you

We consider geographical location, experience, and performance in shaping compensation worldwide. We revisit compensation annually (and more often for graduates and associates) to ensure we recognise outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus or commission. We provide all team members with additional benefits, which reflect our values and ideals. We balance our programs to meet local needs and ensure fairness globally.

• Distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person
• Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year
• Annual compensation review
• Recognition rewards
• Annual holiday leave
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues
• Priority Pass, and travel upgrades for long haul company events

About Canonical

Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. As the company that publishes Ubuntu, one of the most important open source projects and the platform for AI, IoT and the cloud, we are changing the technology world. We recruit on a global basis and set a very high standard for people joining the company. We expect excellence - in order to succeed, we need to be the best at what we do. Canonical has been a remote-first company since its inception in 2004.​ Working here is a step into the future, and will challenge you to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game.

Canonical is an equal opportunity employer

We are proud to foster a workplace free from discrimination. Diversity of experience, perspectives, and background create a better work environment and better products. Whatever your identity, we will give your application fair consideration.