Chief Financial Officer

Advise. Invest. Build. Meet ALAIKA — a new kind of Financial Services firm — globally scaling, headquartered in Munich. The work is hard. The bar is high. You own the finance function end-to-end, build the automated backbone a scaling firm runs on, and thrive in it.

About ALAIKA

At ALAIKA, our vision is to build the future of Financial Services with three brands under one roof — Advisory (Strategy Consulting), Capital (Private Equity), Building (Company Builder). Right now, we are in the midst of building our trojan horse ALAIKA Advisory.

The ambition: building the leading Financial-Services-specific entrepreneurial holding — Fortune 500 access, PE discipline, Silicon Valley technology-depth and thinking. Three networks that compound and multiply.

• One industry. Financial Services. Nothing else.
• One focus. The intersection of business and technology — across Strategic Transformations, AI & Data Intelligence, and Cybersecurity.
• One goal. Being the go-to partner for the world's leading Fortune 500 financial services companies — and the ones we might help build into that.

Founded in October 2022 by Johanna von Geyr (build-up and led Financial Services Practice for a NASDAQ-listed strategy consultancy) and Harald Braunstein (serial entrepreneur with exits incl. IPO), we bring together deep functional domain expertise and networks in global Financial Services, with a proven track record in building, scaling, and investing in leading software product companies.

Curious what ALAIKA is all about? Explore our website and introduction deck.

Join the movement — apply now.

The role and what you will work on

• Own. Own the finance function end-to-end. Accounting, controlling, reporting, tax, and the annual financial statements — and the judgment behind them. The numbers are yours: accurate, on time, founder-ready, and built to help the business decide.
• Lead. Build the finance team from the ground up. Hire, steer, develop. Multiply the output of everyone in it, not just your own.
• Build. We're scaling fast, and the finance backbone has to scale with us: systems, processes, controls, forecasting. Build a genuinely automated operation, not a manual one held together by effort. You don't inherit a finished machine — you build it.
• Steer. Own the forward view: planning, budgeting, forecasting. Track cash, runway, and burn. You see what's coming and steer for it.
• People. Own the systems that pay and grow the team: compensation, bonus structures, performance reviews, the people operation behind them. In a firm that hires the best, how you reward them is a competitive weapon. You build it, you make it work.
• Govern. Own risk, compliance, and controls as the firm scales across borders. Own the external relationships that come with them: auditors, tax advisors, banks, authorities.
• Expand. The role scales with the firm. New deals, new business units, new ground — you grow with it, and the finance backbone becomes the platform the whole firm builds on

What you bring

• Background: Strong degree in finance, business, or a comparably analytical field. A professional qualification (Steuerberater, ACCA, CPA) or an audit background is a plus. A track record that speaks for itself matters more.
• Experience: Demonstrated experience in high-performance settings: fast-scaling company, top-tier consultancy, investment banking, or private equity. We don't count years, we count what you can run. Three exceptional years beat ten average ones.
• Functional Experience. A minimum of three annual closes under your own responsibility, including the team, deadlines, and sign-off.
• Finance Craft. Deep command of accounting and reporting under HGB. Real strength in controlling and corporate finance — cash-flow and scenario modelling, month- and year-end close.
• People & Comp. You have designed and run compensation packages and performance-review systems before — not just administered them. You know how to pay people in a way that attracts and keeps the best.
• Systems. Hands-on with modern finance and ERP tooling (DATEV, SAP, or comparable), and fluent in using AI to do the work faster and cleaner. You build clean processes instead of working around messy ones, and automate everything that should be.
• Lead. You've built and grown teams before — hired, developed, and made the hard calls. And you're an equal to founders, management, and department heads: clear, direct, trusted in the room.
• Languages. Fluent in English and German. Additional languages are a plus.

When you are a fit

“Show me an athlete who did well academically. An athlete because they know what it takes to win and they have had to experience loss.”

— Kenneth C. Griffin, Founder of Citadel

You will work alongside intrinsically driven people who do "what it takes" — and you hold your own among them. You run the finance and operating backbone yourself, pulling the founders in only when it truly matters. Not a talker — a doer who makes things work.

• Book-smart. Strong academic foundation. Think in structures, not gut feel.
• Street-smart. Read the room fast. Prioritise ruthlessly. Grasp commercial reality.
• People-smart. Communicate with precision — clear, direct, persuasive. Build trust across functions and seniority.
• Athlete performance mindset. High aspirations. Grit. Learn faster than the environment
• Entrepreneurial guts. You have built something, owned something, or bet on yourself at some point — and it shows in how you operate. P&L is not an abstraction. Ambiguity is not a problem. You move.

Why join ALAIKA

• Ownership & Impact. Own the entire finance function of a scaling firm, work directly with the founders, and build the backbone the whole company runs on. A rare scope for a single role.
• Compensation. Above market with very entrepreneurial-driven bonus structures.

“My biggest economic misunderstanding was that people got rich from high salary, but almost no one on Forbes got there through salary but only with equity.”

— Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI

• Stellar Network. Shoulder-to-shoulder with financial services executives running today’s giants and the founders building tomorrow’s.
• Offices. Munich and Barcelona. More coming.

Plus: the essentials done right — EGYM Wellpass, bike leasing, a kitchen stocked with healthy food and team events worth showing up for: Oktoberfest, team dinners, and more.

Build the backbone. Enable what comes next.

Invest in the future of Financial Services.

Apply with CV, transcripts, and references. Let’s see if you are the one.