Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

At DATAPAO, data ignites passion, community fuels collaboration, and growth knows no bounds.
We are a leading Data Engineering and AI consulting company backed by Databricks and recognized for our unmatched delivery standards and rapid growth. We have been named Databricks EMEA Emerging Business Partner of the Year (2024), achieved the Golden Tier status in the Databricks Partner Program, and made three consecutive appearances on the Financial Times FT1000 list.

We are looking to hire a
Chief Financial Officer
to drive our very ambitious growth plans. This role will report directly to the CEO and will be part of the Leadership Team.

The position is based in the Budapest HQ or remote (given your commitment to travel regularly to Budapest). You will oversee a team of 2 from the get-go, with an additional headcount to be added within the first 6-12 months.

The Role

As our first CFO, you will be the CEO's closest strategic partner and the architect of DATAPAO's financial future.

You are expected to shape capital allocation, commercial strategy, forecasting, and company-wide performance. You will lead the Finance function, connect every other business unit through planning and forecasting, and keep the company resilient, fundable, and scalable.

We are looking for a true CFO, not a controller role with a big title. Meaning you'll own both halves of the job: the strategic agenda (e.g., pricing, unit economics, scenarios, investor and board narrative) and the operational engine beneath it. Your Senior Controller and Finance Admin run most of the day-to-day, which frees you to spend your time where it counts, informing the business what to do next.

What You'll Own

Strategic & Commercial Leadership

• Shape GTM strategy with the CEO and Head of Sales, including pricing and margin models.
• Build and own the unit economics for consulting and AI-driven services.
• Translate financial insight into concrete strategic recommendations.
• Integrate Finance with Delivery, Education, Sales, People, and Marketing through shared planning and forecasting.

What good looks like: the Leadership Team makes decisions based on your numbers and forecasts because they trust them, and you are in the room shaping the conversation, not reporting on it afterward.

Financial Planning & Forecasting

• Build forward-looking forecasts and scenarios, each with a recommended action.
• Maintain 18 to 24 months of runway visibility at all times.
• Own the planning process end to end, not just the spreadsheets, but the process as a whole.
• Map scenarios we might face, signal risk early, and work on mitigation with the leadership team.

What good looks like: monthly scenario updates with clear recommended actions land on the Leadership Team's table before anyone has to ask. Hence, the Leadership Team is aware of and acts in advance on utilization, gross margin, and cash flow risks.

Performance Insights & Analytics

• Use data to explain why something happened (not only what happened) and to inform future decisions.
• Build and run dashboards across utilisation, margin, pipeline health, and financial performance.
• Operate a dependable weekly and monthly reporting cadence.
• Be prescriptive: tell us what to do next.
• Work with each business unit to show them how they are performing against the budget and how to operate more efficiently.

What good looks like: leaders open a dashboard and know where they stand without having to ask Finance, and every insight comes with a "do this next" recommendation.

Finance Function Design

• Build a modern, automated finance organisation. This means that you leverage technology (yes, AI too) to improve operational efficiency
• Improve the accuracy of our finance data and reporting to the level that the rest of the company relies on it as the single source of truth.
• Lead and grow the finance team: a Senior Controller and Finance Admin today, with room to add a third hire within 6-12 months.

What good looks like: month-end closes quickly and accurately on systems, and over time, the volume of work the Finance Team can sustain with the same headcount is increasing.

FinOps, Risk & Compliance Oversight

• Own the outcome of FinOps: accounting, AP/AR, payroll, and compliance, run through your team rather than by your own hand.
• Keep us paying and paid on time, and compliant with UK and Hungarian tax regulations. (We operate in the UK and HU with legal entities, and in Spain via EOR operators)
• Manage treasury: cash and currency exposure across markets.
• Oversee legal, tax, and cash-flow risk from a commercial perspective.
• Keep the company operating safely within its risk appetite, not through bureaucracy but through clarity and systems.

What good looks like: nothing slips. Payments and filings are never late, both jurisdictions stay clean, and risk is visible to the Leadership Team before it bites. We don't have excess cash sitting idle, and we hedge against currency risk as much as possible.

Investor Relations & Board Reporting

• Own the board-level reporting.
• Lead a fundraising or an acquisition process (if applicable).

What good looks like: board papers tell a clear story with no decoding required, investors trust the numbers, and we can move fast when a raise or an opportunity appears.

How success will me easured in this role?

Your success will be a function of the metrics you'll drive and the metrics that you'll co-own with the rest of the Leadership Team.

You'll Drive

• Forecast accuracy (e.g., within ±5% on the rolling quarter)
• Cash-flow runway, with 18 to 24 months of visibility
• Working capital cycle
• Reporting cadence and quality (weekly and monthly)

You'll Co-own With The Leadership Team

• Gross margin
• EBITDA vs. Plan
• Utilisation rate
• Project margin health
• Revenue predictability

The exact targets are to be agreed with the CEO upon joining.

What does it take to fit the bill?

We know that unicorns don’t exist. But at a minimum, we think you should check most of the boxes below to carry the weight of this role.

Must Have

• CFO or equivalent senior finance leadership experience in a high-growth technology or professional-services business.
• A solid track record of driving planning, forecasting, and growth in partnership with Sales, Delivery, and other business units.
• Demonstrated commercial acumen: you think about margin, pricing, and growth, not only control.
• Strong compliance knowledge.
• An excellent communicator who can carry a number from a spreadsheet to the boardroom.

Nice To Have

• Experience in professional services or consulting.
• Managed fundraising or acquisition processes.
• Built or modernised a finance function and its systems.
• Comfortable sitting in a sales call and working hand in hand with the commercial team.

While we'd like to see you mastering all the above, don’t worry if you don't tick every box. If you tick enough and are keen to drive the growth of one of the best consulting companies in EMEA, we'd love to hear back from you.

What will the selection process look like?

• Screening Interview (~60 minutes): Run by one of our recruiters or our Head of People. The main purpose is to confirm required experience, business acumen, and partnership skills.
• Cultural Interview (~60 minutes): Our Head of People will run it. While we are fully committed to building a high-talent density, “genius jerks” have no place here, so we take fitting the community very seriously. This will be skipped if the screening round is run by our Head of People.
• External CFO Interview (~75 minutes): We're partnering with a fractional CFO to help us probe the core skills required for this role and your experience across the multiple dimensions you'll oversee.
• CEO Interview (~75 minutes): The main focus will be on how you build trust and partner with various functions, particularly Sales. We'll also touch on your experience with planning and M&A processes, among others.
• Team Coffee Chat: Informal, get-to-know-each-other, and vibe-check meeting in person with the Leadership Team and your future team.

What do we offer?

At DATAPAO, we're on a mission to build one of the world's best consulting companies in the field of Data Engineering and AI. And there is hardly any more impactful role in shaping our journey and success than the CFO.

Here is a list of some other extras we offer:

• A stock incentive plan. And the chance to drive its value up from the front seat. Additionally, you'll join the field of data and AI, and we trust there is no better time than today to do so.
• Flexible working hours and PTO days. We’re flexible about how many days you take off, as long as it doesn't conflict with the work getting done. Additionally, it is up to you how many days you spend in the office. However, as a senior leader, we'd expect to spend face-to-face time with your team and mentor others. And we believe this can be achieved only through a balanced mix of in-person and remote work.
• 4 Weeks of Paternity Leave (if applicable). Because we think it’s important for both parents to be there when it matters the most.
• Healthcare benefits. We provide a generous private medical package via Generali, and 15 days per year of fully paid sick leave.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Through EAP, we offer our employees access to psychology, financial, and legal consulting services via phone or in person.
• Top-notch working equipment. You will get a MacBook Pro, a Herman Miller chair, standing desks in the office, and whatever else is needed to give your best.
• The chance to shape our culture. As a Leadership Team member, you get the rare opportunity to influence not only our growth but also how our organizational culture evolves over time.
• A cozy office in the heart of Budapest (close to Oktogon), well-stocked with snacks, drinks, coffee, and beverages. An annual team building and a wide range of other community events

Want to know more about us?

DATAPAO is a Data Engineering and AI company that covers the entire data transformation from architecture to implementation. Beyond delivering solutions, we also provide data and AI training and enablement.

We are backed by Databricks - the creators of Apache Spark, and act as a delivery partner and training provider for them in Europe. Additionally, we are Microsoft Gold Partners in delivering cloud migration and data architecture on Azure. Our delivery partnerships enable us to work in a wide range of industries and with some of the most prominent global companies, such as Norsk-Hydro, Richter, Bayer, Schufa, GetYourGuide, TechnoAlpin, and Logically, to name just a few.

As a training provider, we deliver onsite and online courses globally for Databricks and on our own. We have been teaching professionals at Apple, Amazon, Uber, Microsoft, T-Mobile, GE, Ericsson, and many more to improve their impact with data.

For Even More Insights, Check The Links Below

• Designing and Implementing a Real-time Data Lake with Dynamically Changing Schema (EN) by Máté Gulyás (2021, Spark AI Summit)
• Productionising Machine Learning models (EN) by Máté Gulyás (2023, Mndwrk Event)
• "Ha a data governance jól működik, az olyan, mint egy láthatatlan szupererő” (HU) by Máté Gulyás (2023, Com-Forth Zóna Podcast)

You can also follow us on LinkedIn for all the good stuff or just hit our recruitment team at
jobs@datapao.com
We’re firm believers in scaling up a team without judgment or prejudice. What we really care about is working with the best people out there, no matter their background. And you should also not worry if you don't tick every box in the requirements. If you’re passionate about data and learning new things, you’ll fit right in, and we'd love to hear back from you.

When we hear back from you, we'd like you to know that we are committed to your privacy and keeping your data safe. We do not share your data with any third parties (except the ones we use to run our recruitment process) and keep your application for two years unless you ask us otherwise. We use your data solely for recruitment purposes, such as letting you know about new career opportunities at DATAPAO and/or managing your application. But if you want to know more about how we store and manage your data, check our privacy policy.