Finance Leadership Recruitment | Recruit FDs, FCs

The term “senior” can mean a lot of things, but in our world of finance this is someone qualified and above, usually with management responsibility. To a large extent, these professionals have proven their technical ability, and the focus leans more towards softer skills and sector-specific experience that can help a business to transform their Management Information and decision-making capability.

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Senior Finance Recruitment Services

Headstar’s services in this area are well-renowned and if you’re unclear as to exactly what’s needed within your finance team, then we can provide support in helping to shape the role and person profile. Our full list of services can be seen here and you can make contact with one of our consultants here.

“We recently used Headstar to recruit a Management Accountant role within our team. Our main point of contact was Olivia. She was helpful and supportive throughout the process. We needed to fill the vacancy quickly and despite the current difficulties in the recruitment market, Olivia was able to shortlist a strong list of candidates within a week allowing us to offer the role within 2 weeks of going to market. Headstar are a fantastic firm to work with, they really take time to get to know the business and candidates to make sure they are placing people in the right roles. I would highly recommend them and look forward to working together again in the future.”

"Recruiting senior finance staff is a challenging time, but not so with Headstar. We quickly came to rely on their quality work and effort. Navigating the fine line between job description and business need seems to be effortless for the team at Headstar Jenny and James deliver with patience and empathy exemplify their understanding of the requirements; they got the right fit with the right skills. Would I use them again?, we already are!”

How Our Process Works

Although the accountancy qualification proves that someone can pass examinations, it doesn’t give an accurate picture of someone’s capability on the job. At Headstar, we have the ability to “stress-test” people’s claims as our inhouse Finance Directors can experientially challenge and assess capability.

Our recruitment consultants partner with them in reviewing cultural fit and character traits, giving a fuller picture of the person. For our clients, this means they can take comfort in receiving candidate shortlists that match the brief.

For our clients, this means they can take comfort in receiving candidate shortlists that match the brief. We take pride in our “less is more” approach and actively target and monitor our consultants’ CV submissions to ensure that clients are seeing quality not quantity. It’s this approach that means businesses return to us for all of the senior finance hires.

For all CV submissions, we don’t just rely on our ability to assess someone’s claims. We also ask people for at least 2 references of people they have worked with. We’ll have an informal, “off-the-record” discussion with these referees and share the feedback candidly with our clients.

Our Senior Finance Recruitment Network

Having operated within the senior finance market since our inception in 1986, we are fortunate to have built an extensive network predominantly across the North of England. Candidates are often referred to us via our referrer network, which includes leading accountancy, legal and other professional services firms.

We have also placed people into businesses over decades, meaning that we can have informed discussions on people’s progression and careers to date, having had live feedback from other clients.

Get in touch today

Our qualified FDs would love to help you find the best finance recruitment solution for your team.

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Industries We Work In

Senior finance professionals have skills that are often transferable across multiple sectors. However, we are clear that the accounting techniques can often differ greatly and so it’s unlikely that a person with only financial services experience is going to be able to transition quickly to a manufacturing business. We don’t limit our search activity to specific sectors but look for complementary sectors, such as manufacturing and construction for example, in candidates’ experience, so that they may bring a fresh approach to a business but not lack the technical capability required.

From SaaS to engineering, retail to mining, technology to property, it’s unlikely there’s an industry where we haven’t operated and successfully placed high-performing finance people.

Case Studies

“We started working with Headstar in March 2023 and they were engaged to recruit a compliance accountant for the European business. We had been trying to fill this role since December 2022 and had been working with a number of agencies without success. We had not received many CVs and the quality of CVs that we had received were disappointing. The role that we were trying to fill was quite niche and needed the person to have the right technical skills and experience. We were specifically looking for the person to have practice experience and be either a first time mover from practice or already in an industry role. We had an initial meeting with Headstar and so they could understand the role, the business, the team and the challenges that we were facing in filling the role. The team at Headstar quickly understood what we needed and made suggestions on where we could make the role more appealing to potential candidates ie changing the job title, salary, offering sponsorship. We agreed an approach to the recruitment process and Headstar did everything that they said they would do and within the agreed timescale. There was a lot of focus on this role by the Headstar team and they were very proactive in contacting potential candidates. Headstar were successful in recruiting a person for this role and they have found someone with exactly the right experience and skills and also a good fit with the rest of the team / business. We will definitely use Headstar again for finance recruitment and it was a pleasure to work with them” – Jen Hartley, Regional Finance Director.

A small business with a dilemma of whether they needed to recruit a Finance Director or Financial Controller, but equally needed some advice on the difference between the two. We understood their frustrations with their current finance department and introduced them to a part-time Finance Director. This worked well for them as they’d be unable to afford somebody of this calibre on a full-time basis, nor would we recommend this level of spend given their size. The part-time Finance Director was able to ‘get under the bonnet’ of the finance department and advise the board on a structure that was fit-for-purpose. We worked with the part-time FD and MD to source a competent Financial Controller on a permanent full-time basis. Both Headstar recruits are doing well, and the board now have a fully functioning finance department to aid their decision making.