WHAT DOES AN INTERIM FINANCE DIRECTOR DO?
Published: Oct 02, 2025 - The Interim Finance Director oversees financial reporting, compliance, and treasury functions to ensure organizational stability and adherence to regulations. The role leads budgeting, forecasting, and operational planning while providing strategic analysis and decision support for business leaders. The director also drives process improvements, implements ERP systems, and develops strategies to enhance financial operations and long-term growth.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Interim Finance Director
1. Interim Finance Director Duties
- Team Leadership: Leading a motivated finance team
- Financial Reporting: Ensuring robust reporting requirements and accurate accounting information are delivered
- KPI Presentation: Present KPI's and financial management information
- Board Leadership: Provide leadership to the Board's Finance and Accounting strategy, to optimise the company's financial performance and strategic position
- Strategic Contribution: Contribute fully to the development of company strategy across all areas of the business, challenging assumptions, and decision-making and providing financial analysis and guidance on all activities, plans and targets
- Financial Control: Overall control and responsibility for all financial aspects of the company strategy and expected to analyse figures and implement recommendations based on these findings, with the most profitable outcomes
- Team Management: Managing and leading a small finance team could include month-end, year-end and annual budgeting
- Budget Oversight: Directly overseeing budgets for each department to achieve growth targets
- Commercial Support: Highly commercial interim finance professional to support the Executive Leadership Team
- Financial Analysis: Providing commercial, financial planning and analysis information
- Competitor Evaluation: Evaluate competitor information and present commercial information
2. Interim Finance Director Details
- Business Partnering: Providing strong business partnering to the business and leading a finance ways of working agenda that is highly supported and highly analytical
- Team Development: Leading, developing and growing a team of skillful, data-oriented, Finance business partners, ensuring they have the right balance of technical skills and commercial savviness
- Financial Insights: Providing financial insights to the Operational, Product and Technology Leadership Teams (COO, CPTO)
- Investment Analysis: Return on investment analysis for any new opportunities and efficiency savings within the current operating model to improve business performance and support decision-making
- Capital Allocation: Assessing “agile capital allocation” across Technology Product teams
- Project Oversight: Overseeing and reviewing projects and product investments that will continually improve standards of service delivery, function efficiency, lower risk and increase profitability
- Budget Forecasting: Supporting the Operational Leadership team through the annual budget and quarterly reforecast process
- Performance Metrics: Translating financial and non-financial operational metrics into actionable plans to support key stakeholders in driving the business forward
- Contract Negotiation: Taking an active role in supporting the CFO in negotiations and proposals for new and existing contracts
- FP&A Management: Managing the Group Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) team, who own and run all the forecasting cycles, produce the key reporting packs and deep dive analytics
- Procurement Management: Managing the Procurement team, who look after over £0.5bn of spend
- Team Leadership: Leading an overall team of 20 with 3 direct reports
3. Interim Finance Director Responsibilities
- Business Liaison: Act as a trusted, visible and accessible point of contact to business leaders
- Decision Support: Providing commercial and financial decision support
- Profitability Insight: Challenge and insight into business profitability to drive future performance
- Margin Optimisation: Understand the company drivers, cash and margin optimisation, ensuring an acceptable balance of risk and return
- Financial Accuracy: Accountable for the accuracy of financial records, compliance, business financial plans and forecasts that are produced by the teams within the sector
- Operational Effectiveness: Focus on operational effectiveness and implementing processes and controls
- Customer Relationships: Develop customer relationships to support successful commercial and financial negotiations
- KPI Analysis: Analysis of key KPI, both operational and financial, and the underlying business drivers which are high volume/low value in nature
- Financial Stewardship: Financial stewardship for specific growth areas of the business, which includes the expansion of the commercial client portfolio
- Business Cases: Constructing compelling business cases from a financial standpoint
4. Interim Finance Director Job Summary
- Corporate Structure: Understand and develop the corporate structure to best manage a complex and multi-entity organization
- Team Development: Internally develop and recruit team members to ensure accurate and timely financial management is produced for all company activities
- System Improvement: Improve and upgrade accounting systems and implement best practice procedures
- Financial Controls: Ensure robust financial controls are introduced to mitigate company risk and maximize investment potential
- Credit Control: Improve credit control procedures and manage cash flow effectively
- Tax Filings: Complete several personal and corporate tax filings and work with external advisors
- Financial Reporting: Producing comprehensive financial reports for key stakeholders, both nationally and internationally
- Board Updates: Providing regular updates on the outputs for Funders and the Board
- Process Improvement: Seeking constant improvement to existing financial systems and processes
- Account Accuracy: Maintaining a high level of accuracy in the accounts and financial statements
- Finance Leadership: Leading a small, yet highly capable, finance function that is passionate about ensuring the organization can deliver on ambitious goals
- Treasury Management: Managing all aspects of Treasury
- Cashflow Forecasting: Verifying cash flow forecasts are robust and fit for purpose in the current environment
5. Interim Finance Director Accountabilities
- Board Reporting: Prepare and present board, committee and management reporting, decision-support analysis and feedback
- Fund Compliance: Ensure the timely fulfillment of third-party funders' financial reporting requirements
- Funding Support: Supporting business unit heads to ensure that the submission of funding requests is met
- Regulatory Compliance: Monitor the external regulatory environment, and ensure that the organization is compliant with various tax legislation
- Policy Compliance: Lead compliance by monitoring and updating accounting and reporting policies, processes and practices
- Budget Forecasting: Oversee the preparation of the annual budget and rolling forecasts
- Operational Planning: Support the operating planning activities of the organization
- Decision Analysis: Provide analyses, consultative advice and recommendations to support decision-making for business unit leaders
- Project Review: Review agreements and project submissions to ensure that projects will meet financial requirements
- Treasury Management: Execute treasury functions including cash forecasting, investment accounts management, liaising day-to-day with financial institutions, and debt management and reporting
- Business Strategy: Oversee and develop strategies for finance and business operations
- Process Improvement: Initiate process efficiencies and enhancements to provide a stable and effective platform for business operations
- ERP Implementation: Kick-start an ERP implementation process