Group Head of Finance (Legend)
Legend is hiring a Group Head of Finance, reporting directly to the Finance Director. This role involves leading a 25+ person, multi-location team across Financial Reporting, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Treasury and Payroll. It is a hands-on leadership role requiring someone who can operate comfortably at both strategic and detailed levels, setting the direction for the function while stepping into complex operational and technical challenges when required.
Following Legend's acquisition, the finance function is operating in an environment of increased complexity and change. A key part of this role will be to evolve Legend’s finance operating model to meet these demands by strengthening controls and accountability, standardising and automating processes, improving systems and data flows, and building a scalable organisation that is less dependent on individual knowledge or manual intervention. The role will lead through an established team of finance leaders, developing their capability and creating clear ownership across the function while maintaining high standards of delivery. It will also play a critical role in building effective relationships across Legend and the wider Genius Sports group, balancing the requirements of both while supporting the team through significant organisational change. This role would suit an experienced finance leader who is energised by transformation and ambiguity and has a track record of leaving finance functions materially more scalable, controlled and effective than they found them.
- Lead Legend’s 25+ person, multi-location finance function across Financial Reporting, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Treasury and Payroll, creating clear accountability and ownership through the finance leadership team.
- Assess and evolve Legend’s finance operating model, ensuring organisational structure, process ownership, systems, controls and ways of working can scale with the business and wider Genius Sports group requirements.
- Lead end-to-end redesign and optimisation of core finance processes and systems, identifying opportunities to standardise, simplify and automate workflows while improving efficiency, controls and data quality.
- Establish clear process ownership, SLAs, controls and KPIs, using data to identify performance gaps, bottlenecks and opportunities for continuous improvement.
- Lead through managers and team leads, building their capability and empowering them to take ownership while remaining hands-on in complex operational and technical issues when required.
- Lead Legend’s finance function through post-acquisition integration, balancing the requirements of Legend and Genius Sports Group Finance and driving alignment across reporting, controls, systems, data and ways of working.
- Make clear prioritisation and resource allocation decisions across BAU delivery and transformation initiatives, maintaining critical operations while progressing the highest-value improvements.
- Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across Legend and the wider Genius Sports group, confidently challenging where appropriate and translating complex financial or operational issues into clear business implications and decisions.
- ACA/ICAS/ACCA qualification with significant post-qualified experience in senior finance leadership roles. (required)
- Demonstrable experience leading a sizeable, multi-functional Finance team across multiple disciplines, locations and jurisdictions, with a track record of successfully leading through managers and functional leads. (required)
- Deep operational knowledge across core finance disciplines such as Financial Reporting, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Treasury and Payroll, with the technical credibility to challenge processes and diagnose complex operational issues. (required)
- A strong track record of transforming and scaling finance functions, including end-to-end process redesign, automation, systems improvement, controls, governance and clear process ownership, with evidence of delivering measurable improvements. (required)
- Strong finance systems capability and experience translating operational requirements into effective systems design; ERP implementation or significant transformation experience, including Workday, would be advantageous. (nice-to-have)
- Experience leading teams through significant organisational change, ideally including acquisition integration or working within a larger parent/group finance structure, while maintaining engagement and addressing performance where required. (required)
- A hands-on leadership style combined with strong prioritisation and delegation skills, with experience balancing BAU delivery, transformation programmes and competing demands without becoming an operational bottleneck. (required)
- Excellent stakeholder management and commercial judgement, with the confidence to influence and challenge senior leaders and the resilience to operate effectively in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment. (required)
Genius Sports is a sports data and technology company that supplies official data, streaming, integrity and advertising services to sports leagues, sportsbooks and media companies. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in London, with a major office in New York and others worldwide, it is the official data partner of organisations including the NFL, English Premier League and FIBA. The company provides the technology that connects sports, betting and media businesses. Genius Sports is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.