Blackbird is hiring a Chief Financial Officer to help navigate one of the most important chapters of our firm’s life.

Blackbird currently manages a $10B portfolio of ownership stakes in the most promising companies to be born from Australia and New Zealand. We are the largest investor shareholder in companies like Canva, Culture Amp and Dovetail.

As Blackbird raises over $1B for its next series of funds and we continue to grow our team considerably, we are looking for a leader of our management company finance function.

Blackbird’s mission is to be a generational owner of the best technology companies from Australia and New Zealand. We have always been innovative around building the very best relationships with companies, from raising the first Follow-on Funds in Australia to continue investing in them, to completing one of the first and largest GP-led secondary processes in the region to allow LP liquidity but leave Blackbird’s ownership untouched in the underlying companies. 

We will continue to innovate around the ways that Blackbird can own companies for the long term and an important part of this role is to help us as we build new products and structures to do this. The CFO will be a big part of the team that is pursuing this growth.

Building Blackbird

The CFO is a newly created role that will report directly to Blackbird co-founder Rick Baker and be responsible for bringing a financial perspective to our plans over the coming years.

The core of the role is the ownership of the finance function of the management company. This involves setting the financial strategy, developing the budget for Blackbird and each of its key operating areas, finding opportunities for efficiency and to grow our business. 

It includes leading the management company finance team which we will continue to grow over the coming years. With our desire to be a true institutional investment firm, we want to make sure our management finance function is at a listed company standard. 

People are at the heart of Blackbird. We are currently 54 people and will continue to grow over the coming year. In partnership with the leaders of Blackbird, you will be responsible for bringing together the hiring plan and providing independent analysis to help make the best decisions on how we should allocate our resources. 

Finally, you will be instrumental in our continued innovation as we strive to become generational owners, developing new products and structures for the benefit of our investors and our shareholders.

Position Requirements

Your background is less important than the key skills, which might include:

• Leadership: An ability to build great relationships with the leadership team across Blackbird via excellent communication skills and becoming a trusted partner.

• A voice of financial reason: provide an independent perspective to constructively challenge business decisions, ensuring they are grounded in solid financial criteria.

• Proactive strategic thinking: able to independently come up with new strategic ideas, solve challenges, and communicate these well with the team and our external stakeholders.

• Clarity of thought: The ability to distil the business of Blackbird into key insights that then help support strategic decisions.

• Valuation: Financial modelling and analysis of the value of Blackbird’s management company, carry entitlements and communicating both to internal and external stakeholders.

• Humility, low-ego: We are a small team and no one is too good to do anything. We all take out the garbage.

• Hospitality Mindset: In our dealings with founders and investors, we take a hospitality mindset. We serve our founders, not the other way around. We are about people, not companies. Similarly, we treat our colleagues with generosity and respect. One team, one dream.

Working at Blackbird

We believe that building a diverse and inclusive team is critical to Blackbird’s success. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital, veteran, or disability status. We use Applied to ensure every applicant gets an equal chance of success.

Our July 2021 half-year Culture Amp engagement score is 96.

We offer:

• Flexible working: Whether it’s working from home or leaving early to pick up the kids from daycare or school.

• Generous parental leave: We know family comes first and we are proud to offer generous parental leave — 16 weeks for primary carer and 6 weeks for a secondary carer, subject to a 12 month minimum tenure. This includes a continuation of super payments while on unpaid parental leave and a supportive return-to-work policy.  

• Learning & Development: Our team is hungry to continuously learn and you’ll receive a budget to spend on whatever you’d like to learn — from coding courses to meditation.  

• Unplugged weekends: We work hard without letting work get in the way of life. We’ve implemented no Slack or emails on weekends, so you can switch off.  

• Sharing in Blackbird’s success: We think it is important to share successes with the whole team. All Blackbird employees receive carry or in our funds and are owners in the management company.  

Blackbird is a Pledge 1% member — we pledge 1% of our time, equity and profits to help not-for-profit causes in our community, with a focus on greater gender diversity in STEM education.

About Blackbird

Blackbird is a firm whose mission is to supercharge Australia and New Zealand’s most ambitious founders. We do this currently by raising venture capital funds, investing in the best startup companies and helping them succeed. We have more than ten billion dollars under management and a portfolio of 68 companies including some of the most successful Australian startups such as Canva, Zoox, SafetyCulture and Culture Amp.

Like the companies we back, we want to build a business that lasts for decades and produces excellent returns for our investors.

We’ve written a lot about what we love at Blackbird, so check out our blog if you want some more information about us. In particular, you should read about our mission and values, our master plan, and what we look for in founders.

Good Luck!