Our clients
Equity FD specialises in the recruitment of finance directors into individual, entrepreneurial companies where steady state is never going to be an option. The businesses we work with cross sectors and locations but are united in their requirement for a strong, broadly skilled and tenacious FD to act as right hand man or woman to the CEO.
Most of these businesses are standalone, many with a degree of leverage and/or private equity backing. All have an agenda which is about taking action, managing cash, embracing shareholder value, setting and achieving targets.
Our branding ensures that our message is clear. We only seek to source finance directors who positively seek and embrace profile and risk, want to put their head above the parapet and who are focused on a reward which reflects a balance between salary and participation in the success they help to create.
We are often initially referred into a business by an advisor, investor, lender or chairman who we have worked with previously and who knows that we understand the particular nature of the finance director being sought.
Our client is however, almost always the business itself and we work to understand:
- The business, its products, its markets and the opportunities and challenges they present.
- The goals and issues in the business, what plans it has to expand and/or exit and what funding or cash challenges it may have.
- What is driving the other key members of the management team and the owners of the business.
- What will be the best fit with the business for the new hire, crucially to ensure that the incoming FD is aligned with the management and founders’ goals and will collaborate as a peer at board level.
Our clients cross sector and location. They include:
- Private equity or venture capital backed businesses.
- Owner managed businesses.
- Bank owned businesses (often following a debt/equity swap).
- AIM listed businesses.
- Start ups/pre revenue businesses.
- Newly de-merged businesses.
- Businesses looking to list.
Our testimonials demonstrate the range of sectors and locations we have worked across, from support services to fashion brands and from Manchester to Malaysia!
Our candidates are not generally sector specific rather they are business facing FDs with a generic, commercial tool kit. If a particular sector requirement is a pre requisite (as often is the case in for example, manufacturing, retail or financial services) then we are able to drill down into our network and produce candidates who match specific criteria. Crucially, they won’t be in our network if they have not selected themselves for the type of roles we work with – so we won’t be sacrificing mindset for sector expertise – they will have both!