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Director Finance Platform
HelsingMunichSenior
Apply Who we are
Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership, so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards.
As democracies, we believe we have a special responsibility to be thoughtful about the development and deployment of powerful technologies like AI. We take this responsibility seriously.
We are an ambitious and committed team of engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing programme managers. We are looking for mission-driven people to join our European teams – and apply their skills to solve the most complex and impactful problems. We embrace an open and transparent culture that welcomes healthy debates on the use of technology in defence, its benefits, and its ethical implications.
The role
As Director of Finance Platform, you will provide strategic and operational leadership across a large breadth of Helsing's Finance function, covering accounting & reporting, treasury, tax compliance, and accounts payable. With a span of responsibility that touches every part of the business, from how we manage our treasury and accounts payable, to how we account for revenue, plan our finances, and fulfil our tax obligations, this role is fundamental to how Helsing operates, grows, and maintains the trust of its customers, partners, and investors.
Reporting directly to the Finance Director, this role is responsible for translating finance strategy into robust and efficient operational delivery, ensuring the function operates with the controls, structure, systems and rigour expected of a fast-scaling, mission-driven technology company. The breadth of this role creates significant influence across multiple functions and leadership teams, from Product and Engineering through to Commercial and People, making this as much a business leadership role as a finance one.
The day-to-day
Strategy & Planning
- Partner with the Finance Director and Finance Transformation team to establish strategic plans and objectives for the Finance Platform function, and ensure these are effectively cascaded and executed across the team
- Contribute to the development of policies and operating frameworks relevant to Finance
- Play a leading role in creating a high performing finance leadership team and in enabling the broader organization through the many financial areas that underpin the smooth running of the business and execution of new strategic business initiatives.
Accounting & Reporting
- Ensure accounting operations, month-end close, and statutory reporting are delivered accurately and on time across all entities
- Maintain a robust control environment and ensure accounting policies remain appropriate as the business evolves
- Serve as the senior Finance lead for all internal and external audits, including statutory audits across Helsing's legal entities. This also means that you will be taking the lead in our future Audit Committee
- Ensure audit readiness is maintained as a standing operational standard, not a periodic exercise
- Own the resolution of audit findings, ensuring agreed actions are tracked, escalated where necessary, and closed within agreed timescales
- Work closely with Internal Audit, Legal, and Compliance to maintain a robust internal control framework across the Finance Platform function
- Provide the Finance Director and relevant governance bodies with clear and timely reporting on audit status and control effectiveness
Accounts Payable
- Manage accounts payable operations, ensuring invoices and payments are processed accurately, on time, and in line with internal controls and policies
- Drive efficiency and automation across the accounts payable process, including through AI-enabled tooling
- Maintain strong supplier relationships and ensure payment terms are managed in alignment with the company's liquidity and treasury objectives.
Treasury
- Oversee treasury operations including liquidity management, cash flow forecasting, and banking relationships across all relevant entities
- Ensure treasury risk frameworks are fit for purpose and aligned with Helsing's growth trajectory
What success looks like
- A high-performing, well-integrated and engaged Finance Platform team with clear accountability, strong controls, and a culture of continuous improvement
- A strong finance tech stack — anchored in a well-implemented SAP environment — enabling financial excellence and efficiency, with deep AI-driven productivity and benefits
- Financial reporting and planning processes that are timely, accurate, and genuinely useful to business decision-making
- Clean audit outcomes across statutory audits, with no material control weaknesses and a strong track record of timely remediation
- Trusted, credible relationships across the Finance function and with key partners in Product, Legal, and the broader business
You should apply if you
- Have significant senior finance leadership experience, with a strong track record of building and managing broad, multi-disciplinary finance functions ideally with experience of massive scaling or taking entity public or track record in the public entity, while also having the confidence and capability to dive into the detail when the situation requires it.
- Have delivered multi-entity IFRS consolidations and hold in-depth knowledge of IFRS 15, alongside strong working knowledge of German GAAP (HGB)
- Have experience collaborating with FP&A and business partners to ensure cost allocation is properly applied across domains and projects
- Have experience delivering successful automation enhancement to finance operating processes, including through AI
- Are comfortable building processes across multi-entity, multi-jurisdictional structures in an international organisation
- Are effective at building alignment in complex, cross-functional settings
- Are proficient in SAP and associated sub-tools, and are comfortable working across ERP environments to manage and improve finance operations
- Are business-fluent in German and fluent in English, enabling seamless collaboration with a distributed, international team and a broad stakeholder group
Note: We operate in an industry where women, as well as other minority groups, are systematically under-represented. We encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all the listed qualifications; ability and impact cannot be summarised in a few bullet points.
Nice to Have
- Familiarity with the defence sector and associated export regulations
- ACA, CPA, or equivalent professional accounting qualification
- Experience implementing new ERP systems or embedding financial AI tooling into existing workflows
- Experience working with Business Intelligence platforms such as Tableau or Power BI for financial data analysis
- A track record of building or restructuring accounting teams and processes during periods of rapid growth
What we offer Join Helsing and work with world-leading experts in their fields
- Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns
- The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world
- Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defence industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field of world are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward
- In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts
- We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practise responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about
What we offer
- Competitive salary and VSOP options
- Relocation support: up to €2,500 and 4 weeks temporary accommodation
- Learning: €500/£450 yearly allowance
- Health & wellness: gym membership and mental health support (Nilo.health)
- Social: regularly company events and monthly social allowances
- Enhanced parental leave: 22 weeks fully paid for primary caregivers & 6 weeks for secondary caregivers.
- Family support: 5 days of paid family emergency leave, 100% remote work option during pregnancy and phased return to work
These are the core benefits across all locations, there may be additional benefits in certain locations.
Helsing is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or gender identity. Please do not submit personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning your health, or data concerning your sexual orientation.