Job description
Who we are?
Silverfin is a cutting-edge cloud software solution built by accountants, for accountants.
Founded in 2013, Silverfin was created to solve the frustrations of manual, error-prone processes in analysing financial data and compliance. From day one, we’ve been a cloud-first platform with an open API architecture, leveraging structured data to transform how accountants work.
Our mission is simple: to enhance and support the accountancy profession through AI and automation, ensuring accountants remain relevant and respected in the future of finance.
In 2023, Silverfin became part of the Visma Group, joining one of Europe’s leading providers of cloud software. This partnership strengthens our ability to innovate and expand our impact within the accountancy industry.
Today, Silverfin is trusted by over 930 firms across 16 countries. Our clients include all of the Big 4 accounting firms, as well as leading global networks like BDO, PKF, Baker Tilly, Grant Thornton, and Moore.
Headquartered in Ghent, with offices in London, Luxembourg, Gouda (NL), and Mont-Saint-Guibert, we’re a team of over 180 people - including a diverse remote engineering team working across multiple time zones - all working together to drive innovation in accounting.
How would you support our success?
The role of COO is a strategically and operationally significant member of the executive leadership team reporting directly to the CEO. Working alongside the senior leaders within SIlverfin and leading a team of senior managers the COO creates impact through influence, collaboration, decision-making, problem solving and empowerment at the highest level across the entire business value chain.
The leaders and teams across the functions of Finance, People & Culture, Business Operations & IT, Legal and Security report to the COO role. The COO will coach and develop the leaders of these business functions in a high performing team environment - facilitating and overseeing a broad range of OKRs and activities across these crucial areas.
The COO has a unique relationship with the CEO, Board and other Visma leaders across finance, legal, people and general management areas. This is a busy and varied role, involving high degrees of autonomy and working in both structured and unstructured contexts - often simultaneously.
Key Impact Areas:
- Oversight of the execution and implementation of the company strategy - once agreed, ensuring a “whole of business approach” to knowing what our goals are, why they’re important and how we’ll achieve them.
- Alignment of the backbone functions of the business to ensure a high performing business operating model (OM) including company wide OKRs and performance metrics.
- Act as a key service provider to the departments of the business - ensure the leadership team feels supported as an internal customer.
- Effective strategic and operational outcomes from the People team.
- Best practice in the Finance team to ensure we leverage our resources and capital investments, stay compliant and produce excellent plans and reporting.
- Compliant and value adding legal and security policy, practices and management
- Responsive, efficient and effective IT for the organisation, sophisticated performance insights and business operational support and management.
Your responsibilities
Strategy and General Management:
- Collaborate strongly with the leadership team to create and the long term strategic vision and annual business plans.
- Partnering with other leaders to accomplish short and long-term operational goals.
- Maintain an effective level of business literacy including company strategy, business plans, financial position, competition, technology and culture.
- With marketing and the CEO “office”, oversee a strong framework for internal company based communications.
Financial Performance:
- Oversee financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting processes.
- Manage and allocate resources effectively, including budget controls and capital investments.
- Monitor key financial metrics and drive profitable growth.
- Ensure compliance with financial regulations and reporting requirements.
- Ensure high quality outcomes for all required audit processes.
- Lead and leverage pricing and packaging as a key business driver.
- Ensure efficient and customer-focused billing and finance operations, including credit control, AP, expense management, banking and cash management.
People Leadership:
- Overseeing all aspects of human resource management, employee engagement and organisational development, ensuring that the company culture aligns with the business objectives.
- Ensure a high performing culture aligned with company values and a people focused approach.
- Foster a positive and inclusive culture that attracts and retains top talent.
- Implement effective talent identification, development, and retention strategies.
- Maintaining current knowledge of industry trends and employment legislation to ensure regulatory compliance. Identify and respond to HR trends that could impact the organisation objectives.
- Oversee organisation wide or impactful change management activities.
- Ensure HR partnering with management is in place to address day-to-day HR operational issues such as employee relations, compensation and benefits, performance management and training and development budgets.
- Ensure all office administration is catered for across various locations.
- Reinforce the commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by fostering an inclusive culture and ensuring diversity is a key component of leadership decisions and policies.
- Policies and practices are regularly reviewed and refined - ensuring up to date knowledge available for all staff across Silverfin and additional specialist information as required for People Managers.
Legal, security and risk management:
- Identify, assess, and mitigate operational and financial risks.
- Ensure compliance with relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards.
- Develop and maintain a robust security framework to protect our systems and data.
- Ensure that the organization complies with all relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards.
- Oversee regulatory compliance and reporting.
- Support contract negotiation and development for customers and partners.
Business operations and performance management:
- Oversee the development and implementation of operational strategies to drive efficiency and scale.
- Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance operational efficiency and reduce costs.
- Establish and maintain robust systems, processes, and metrics to measure performance.
- Reporting and KPI oversight, including benchmarking and regular feedback on business performance to various stakeholders.
- Analyze internal operations and identify areas for process enhancement.
- Champion and nurture a culture of continuous improvements using business process management techniques to elevate our “ways of working” across the business.
- Stay current with technology trends relevant to the industry.
- Ensure effective and efficient management of external supplier relationships.
- Leverage technology and automation solutions to streamline operations and enhance productivity.
- Leverage AI and other next generation tools for employee and business efficiency - always ensuring adequate risk and change management.
Other important areas:
- Environmental and Sustainability Initiatives: Develop and implement environmentally sustainable practices and initiatives in line with corporate responsibility goals.
- Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and Partnerships: Participate in M&A activities, due diligence, and integration efforts. Identify and evaluate strategic partnerships and alliances.
What would success look like?
- The leadership team is confident the departments under your leadership are aligned with company strategy, and executing according to our vision and values.
- The leaders of the functions are feeling well managed and coached.
- That the business knows the value the back office departments deliver and the teams feel accountable to achieve high performance outcomes.
- That our OKR framework is simple and successful and we are able to link team performance and clear focus to company goals and outcomes.
- That the focus of your teams is international and inclusive.
- That we are aligned with and leveraging Visma practices and alongside that we are seen as a leader in these functions - that we are innovative, responsive, efficient and impactful.
- That all leaders have high quality data, information and insights to better run the business.
- That our investment in IT, applications, tools and digital processes including AI is well managed and responsive to business needs.
- That the Board and governance processes are well delivered. Board members love our reporting, communication, meeting content and processes that involve them.
- That we are actively increasing the talent density of the business.
- That there are few to no cases of legal conflict.
- That there are few to no cases of IP legal cases raised against us.
- That the SIlverfin culture is understood (even if difficult to articulate) and we operate in a values aligned manner.
- Monthly reporting is fantastic.
- Internal communication reflects messaging on the right topics - regular moments of “feel good” and impromptu celebrations with important issues surfaced (failure isn’t shied away from), we are surfacing the “metrics that matter” across the business.
- Rule of Visma targets achieved - continued financial literacy across the leaders and whole of business.
- Employee engagement is increasing to target and we operate eNPS surveying in an efficient and effective way including clear and communicated actions to respond to eNPS results and maintain and increase scores in key feedback areas.
- Build great internal relationships between key stakeholders.
Experience and Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business, or related field; MBA preferred.
- Proven experience in a senior operations leadership role, preferably as a CFO, COO or similar position.
- Extensive experience in finance, HR, operations or general management, with a focus on supporting a growing people and performance centred business.
- Proven track record in managing specialist and skills teams.
- Experience in fintech or B2B SaaS is a requirement.
- Leadership and team management experience, with the ability to build and lead high-performing teams.
Skills and knowledge
- Strong knowledge of operational best practices, process optimization, and business management.
- Exceptional strategic thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
- Ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams.
- Strong leadership and team management abilities.
- Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring timely and successful delivery.
- Ability to adapt to changing market conditions and drive operational innovation.
- Solid grasp of data analysis and performance metrics.
- Experience in organisational efforts across multiple countries and offices.
Attitude and personality-related traits
- Proactive and results-oriented mindset.
- Team-oriented, with a focus on fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture.
- Optimistic, calm and persistent and resilient in the approach to work.
- Ability to diagnose problems quickly and foresee potential issues.
- Staying connected to product and customers.
- Creative thinker with the ability to innovate and drive change.
- Resilient and adaptable to a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
- Effective in building and maintaining relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
We Care For You
- Be part of something bigger – Join a growing SaaS company that’s now proudly part of Visma, Europe’s leader in mission-critical cloud software.
- A connected team a– Take part in regular team activities, retreats, and offsites to keep our culture thriving.
- Grow with us – Take advantage of career development opportunities and a personal training allowance to support your growth.
- Time to recharge – Enjoy our company-wide Wellbeing Days off each month (reviewed annually).
- Fair compensation – Receive a competitive rewards package with benefits tailored to your role.
- Flexibility with connection – We have a hybrid setup, with a minimum of two days a week in the office. However, we understand that life can be unpredictable, so we offer flexibility to accommodate unexpected events. Our offices in Belgium (Ghent), the UK (London – Old Street / Shoreditch), the Netherlands (Gouda), and Luxembourg provide great spaces to collaborate and connect.
How we work
At Silverfin, we’re an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status. We’re committed to elevating talent by creating an environment where we can all thrive together.
We have a unique culture with our values as the backbone:
Who we are - Authentically human
How we think - With a growth mindset
How we act - Bravely, side by side
How we win - By doing what we love
At Silverfin we make our own way. We are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to move forward. Continuous learning and development is encouraged to support your personal and professional growth.
At the same time, this opens up many new opportunities that allow our people to grow with Silverfin, and often faster than with other companies. So many ambitious team members have already found their way to a new challenge within Silverfin.
We want you to reach your full potential. To get you there, we don’t want to think in boxes and over-structure things. So your options are not limited to 1 team or 1 career track. Your talent, motivation and potential play a crucial role in evolving across the teams into new roles.
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.
