Acclime is looking for a agile leader to join as CFO within our Virtual CFO Services line.

The role holds primary day-to-day leadership of Acclime’s Virtual CFO client portfolio in Australia and is accountable for the quality, commerciality and profitability of CFO engagements across a portfolio of SME groups, family offices and high net worth family businesses, and for leading the onshore and offshore delivery teams that support them.

The role is the senior client-facing owner of delivery. It carries the relationship, technical and team leadership responsibilities of a Partner-level engagement lead, without carrying service line strategy, group representation or service line P&L; ownership, which remain with the Service Line Lead. It is a deliberate succession and capacity role: freeing service line leadership to focus on growth, integration and new market development, while ensuring existing clients experience no reduction in seniority or continuity.

Key Responsibilities:

Act as the primary relationship owner for a portfolio of Virtual CFO clients, including the group’s largest and most complex engagements

Hold the CFO seat for clients — attend board and management meetings, present financial performance, and provide commercial recommendations to owners, boards and management teams

Own the annual engagement cycle for each client: scoping, budgeting, reporting calendar, board pack cadence and review points

Anticipate client needs and issues ahead of them arising, maintaining the proactive engagement standard the portfolio is built on

Manage escalations and sensitive client matters, engaging the Service Line Lead only where the matter warrants it

2. Technical & Advisory Delivery

Oversee delivery of core CFO outputs:



management reporting and board packs, three-way financial models, budgets, rolling forecasts, cash flow and working capital management, and KPI/performance reporting

Lead client financing and banking workstreams, including facility reviews, term sheet analysis, covenant monitoring and lender relationships

Provide commercial input on structuring, remuneration and incentive design, shareholder and governance arrangements, and succession planning, coordinating specialist input from Tax, Corporate Advisory and legal referral partners

Support transaction activity across the portfolio — due diligence, financial modelling, earn-out and completion mechanics — in conjunction with the Corporate Advisory service line

Maintain technical currency across Australian accounting, tax and corporate compliance matters relevant to privately held groups

Lead delivery of the full function finance team model across the portfolio — CFO, financial controller and treasury, data and analysis, payroll and bookkeeping

Direct the Pune-based delivery pods supporting the portfolio: allocation, capacity planning, quality control, escalation and career development, in partnership with the India operations leadership

Own the onshore/offshore work split for each engagement to protect both client outcomes and engagement margin





Drive adoption of the standard technology stack and workflow automation across the portfolio, and identify processes suited to automation or AI-enabled delivery

Maintain and improve standard templates, working papers and delivery procedures so that engagements are repeatable and transferable between team members

Accountable for revenue, margin and recoverability across the client portfolio

Set and negotiate fees, prepare engagement letters and scope variations, and manage scope creep and out-of-scope work

Monitor and manage WIP, lock-up, billing and debtor outcomes for the portfolio

Manage team utilisation and resourcing to meet portfolio commitments

Contribute to service line budgeting and forecasting, and provide the portfolio-level input the Service Line Lead requires for planning

People Leadership & Capability Building

Lead, mentor and develop Senior Managers, Managers, Controllers and Analysts across onshore and offshore teams

Own workflow allocation, review standards and turnaround expectations across the delivery team

Build depth beneath the role so that client relationships are held by more than one person, and support progression aligned with Acclime job levelling and career pathways

Support performance reviews, remuneration discussions and talent decisions in collaboration with the Service Line Lead and People & Culture

Foster a high performance, inclusive and values driven culture across a distributed team

Ensure engagements comply with professional standards, independence requirements, regulatory obligations and internal policies

Provide final technical review on client deliverables issued from the portfolio, including advice provided verbally in board and management

📌 CFO – Virtual CFO Services (Melbourne)
🏢 ACCLIME CORPORATE SERVICES AUSTRALIA
📍 Melbourne