Client Focused CFO Sydney

Be part of Australia’s leading startup-focused accounting and CFO firm, dedicated to doing things differently.

Are you a CFO or senior finance leader who loves working directly with founders? Maybe you’re coming from another advisory or professional services firm and want deeper client impact, better clients, and more autonomy.

Either way, this is an opportunity to play a senior, visible role in growing our Sydney presence while delivering high-quality fractional CFO services to some of Australia’s most ambitious startups and scaleups.

The opportunity

Standard Ledger is continuing to grow, and we’re looking for a Sydney-based CFO to join our team and support a portfolio of venture-backed and high-growth clients.

Sydney is where much of Australia’s startup capital is raised, and this role sits right in the middle of that ecosystem. Your primary focus will be client service delivery – acting as a trusted fractional CFO to founders and leadership teams.

For the right person, there is also the opportunity to participate in the growth of the firm. While this is not a business development role, we do value people who are active in the startup ecosystem, build strong networks, and occasionally help bring new CFO relationships into the firm. Where that happens, there is meaningful upside available, structured simply and transparently.

You’ll be supported by a highly capable delivery team across Australia and offshore, allowing you to focus on advisory, judgement and relationships rather than pure production.

What you’ll do

• Act as the lead fractional CFO for a portfolio of startup and scaleup clients, in Sydney and around Australia  
• Partner closely with startup founders on strategy, cash flow, runway, pricing, hiring and growth decisions  
• You’re comfortable being the most senior finance voice in the room.
• Own forecasting, board reporting and investor-ready financials  
• Support capital raises, debt funding, grants and M&A where relevant  
• Translate complex financial information into clear commercial insight  
• Work alongside our accounting, tax, R&D and advisory teams 
• Represent Standard Ledger in the Sydney startup ecosystem  
• Contribute to new client relationships through your network where possible, and participating in events

A little more about us

Standard Ledger is an accounting and CFO firm focused on startups and scaleups, born in Australia, operating in the UK for the past three years, with a strong back-end FinOps team in the Philippines.   We work alongside our clients as part of their teams, combining strong fundamentals with modern systems, smart tooling and increasingly automated workflows.

We’re operators first, accountants second. We lean into better ways of working, and we give our people the space to do meaningful advisory work with great clients.

About you

You’re a senior finance professional with strong judgement and presence, and you genuinely enjoy working with clients.

Ideally, you:

• Have 10+ years’ experience across CFO, FD or senior commercial finance roles  
• Have delivered finance services in a client-facing, advisory or professional services environment  
• Have deep experience with startups or fast-growing businesses  
• Are comfortable operating as a fractional CFO across multiple clients  
• Are CA or CPA qualified and know when to bring this to bear, without leading with this
• Are Sydney-based and happy being out in front of clients  
• Are active in, or closely connected to, the startup ecosystem  

You’re commercial, pragmatic and not precious. You care about helping businesses grow, not just producing technically correct answers.

We’re flexible on structure and timing for the right person, and we’ll support a thoughtful transition into the role.

As well as the core base salary, there's also the possibility of sharing some of the growth upside if you're up for that, as well as the possibility of owning part of the bigger picture with equity in our business via an employee share scheme.