Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Hunter Quinn Homes, et.al.
Ver 1.1 (110419)

About the Opportunity

Hunter Quinn Homes is looking for a world-class Chief Financial Officer (CFO) that is highly talented, collaborative, and data-driven to join the executive team and help guide the company to future planned expansion and growth to some 3x our current size. Hunter Quinn Homes (hereafter “HQ Home”) is a privately-held family-owned Charleston, SC residential home builder that offers a variety of floor plans, feature sets, and price points to meet individual family buyer needs; at our website, one can learn more about our communities and customers we serve: (https://www.hunterquinnhomes.com/communities.

In addition to our HQ Home construction company, the equity holders of HQ Home have several other adjacent closely-held businesses that include a landholding company, a landscaping and maintenance services company, and several locally operated restaurants. While not yet formally structured as a ‘family office’, the stakeholders envision that the new CFO will provide ‘family office’ executive management services for stakeholder owned business units, and advise family equity holders on their specific business units performance, capital formation, investment, taxation, and personal wealth management portfolio planning needs. Consequently, CFO applicants with prior ‘family office’ executive management experience of a portfolio of closely-held business entities are strongly encouraged to apply.

For this key executive search, Hunter Quinn Homes has engaged ePraxis, a premier-level talent selection and executive coaching company, to direct and facilitate the stakeholders search for a new CFO. HQ Home’s unique culture requires a certain personality for the role: we seek a CFO executive who has prior experience working for family owned businesses, who is emotionally intelligent, analytical and savvy but not stuffy (“no suits”), competitive, exercises clam urgency, a true self-starter, who is curious about business and thrives making data-driven decisions. Our ideal CFO candidate will be a proven developer of people, capacity, capital, and teams.  Ideally, our CFO will come from the residential home building and residential community development industry where a key focus of growth is identifying, planning, and rolling out multiple housing subdivisions, with each new division or project sharing a load or burden of corporate overhead.  Our ideal candidate will have highly developed financial, analytical, capital formation, and risk management abilities and demonstrated commitment to personal growth, curiosity, and lifetime learning. Finally, our ideal candidate will be wise, humble, trustworthy, holding confidences of the stakeholders, serving as a key financial adviser to the CEO and family owners.

CFO Position Description

Technical Responsibilities of our Hunter Quinn Homes CFO

At Hunter Quinn Homes, the CFO reports to the CEO and is responsible for collaborating with owners and executive team to develop and manage the strategic financial operations of the company. As HQ Home’s CFO, you would have primary responsibility for planning, implementing, managing and controlling all financial-related activities of the company and affiliated companies owned by the family members, under the direction of the CEO.

Your regular management duties would include accounting, budgeting, banking, cash-flow forecasting, project forecasting and analysis, strategic planning, contract negotiations, contract review, base and incentive compensation planning, long- and short-term planning (such as ROI calculations on CAPEX.) Your duties will also include banking relations, capital formation, and capital planning. Periodically, your role would require mergers and acquisition (M&A) due diligence and integration, business model development, deal analysis, presentation to groups, and participation in various types of negotiations.

As envisioned, HQ Home’s CFO is an executive leader and manager and will be tasked by the CEO to lead other company initiatives, programs, and business units from time to time. It is worth noting that HQ Home is intentionally a small and flat organization exercising contract control over subcontractors and vendors who provide most of the day-to-day work effort in the field.  While we have a clear leadership and team structure, executives needing a certain degree of status and privilege may be surprised by our culture that deals with executives respectfully the same as any other associate.

For HQ Home and our other closely held affiliated businesses, the CFO needs to be able to explain complex financial principles simply and visually, with rich data analysis and support for factors other associates need to understand. You will, of course, bring experience and wisdom other members of the team do not have; a successful CFO will need to respect the contribution of each associate and provide data discovery and analysis tools that will help people from a variety of backgrounds make better decisions.

Our CFO will need to have the energy, drive, desire and commitment to the values, processes, and systems improvements that will help Hunter Quinn Homes’ executive team lead the company to new levels of growth and profitability. We are particularly interested in meeting CFOs with experience in managing and growth companies ranging in the $100 million to $250 million in revenue; we are presently $50+ million in revenue and seek to put strategy, systems, process, people, and capital into place to make this aspiration a reality.

Top 10 Traits Hunter Quinn Homes Seeks in our CFO

1. Curious, introspective, and determined to improve 

2. Honest, open, and transparent 

3. Responsible, accountable, able to delegate to get things done 

4. Intelligent, knowledgeable, and lifetime learner 

5. Willing to lead by example (executive management, strategy, initiative, and innovation)
6. Confident without hubris; humble strength 

7. Emotionally intelligent, low maintenance 

8. Operates with intention, a sense of calm urgency, self-driven, self-motivated
9. Inherent passion for contribution 

10. Creative, collaborative, and helpful team member 


Summary of General Responsibilities of our CFO

HQ Home CFO key responsibilities include:

• The CFO plays a key discovery and strategic advisory role for the CEO and company on corporate strategy, M&A, governance, growth planning, capital formation, and risk management.
• Core management of company internal controls, financial planning and analysis, accounting and audit, tax planning, finance and treasury, governance and compliance, and investor relations.
• You will coordinate and strategize with outside tax counsel and tax preparation firms and support independent third-party financial operations consultant in quarterly financial reviews with business unit leaders.
• The CFO will be a team leader for the accounting functions, HR, and IT, and will manage an assistant controller, two staff accountants (including one who doubles as the office manager), and the current CFO during the transition. Additionally, CFO will manage the contractual relationship with HQ Home's accounting firm. The firm relies on third-party solutions such as ADP Payroll for additional support.
• Extended CFO duties include supporting the CEO and executive team in their respective roles with improved decision-making information, financial controls, process improvement reviews, and coaching in financial and risk management.
• Within the finance department, the CFO will manage treasury, finance, and accounting, including P&L, Balance Sheet, and forward-looking cash-flow forecasting; strong cash-flow forecasting and capital formation capabilities are key decision-making factors in this search.
• Additional duties include strategic planning, job costing, legal liaison, banking relations, tax, and compliance.
• You will develop, monitor, and manage KPI-driven dashboards throughout the company to create a transparent information system in real-time.
• You manage the cadence and schedule of financial reporting, seeking for industry best-of-breed timeliness, execution, and accuracy.
• Develop financial tools, situational awareness, and progress reporting to increase the effectiveness and ease of doing business with Hunter Quinn Homes valued clients.
• Create historical, current, and forward-looking financial plans and statements.
• Provide clear and concise communication to many types of people (understanding people and their motivators.)
• Effectively plan and communicate priorities for your team, and align the executive team to financial goals.
• Be proactive and forward-looking, bringing issues to the executive team to consider before problems arise.
• Develop and manage banking and credit relationships.
• Conduct periodic M&A analysis, negotiation and acquisition integration as directed by the CEO.
• Provide thought leadership in forecasting and analytics.
• Coordinate with team members responsible for Administration, HR, IT, legal, and business development.
• Work with executives to develop a system that rationally identifies each team member's potential contribution, strengths, i.e., their "bright spots" in the organization, and develop a strategy to help each team member impact the overall company and improve business practices.
• Prepare and oversee financial and operations standard operating procedures (SOPs.)
• Manage teams using a player-coach style, focusing on improving player performance throughout the team members and executive team, not by compulsion or demand, but by persuasion, encouragement, coaching, and developing business processes, systems and support methods that make doing good work easier, desirable, and adopted by all.
• Support the executive team and business unit leaders, providing information, direction, and support for their teams.
• Create and foster a financial team that is service oriented and enthusiastic in their ability to teach and coach sound business principles to our many creative and talented team members who may have little prior business or financial education.
• Create and monitor policies, procedures, and schedules to orderly manage issues such as management practices, transactions, reporting, compliance, audit, regulation, and interdepartmental coordination.
• The Company leadership uses a modified version of EOS / VTO for strategic planning purposes, and follows the general cadence of this business operating system; the CFO will participate and support the systematic implementation and operation of this system.
• Other duties as may be assigned from time to time by the CEO.

Qualifications and Requirements

• BS in Accounting or Finance required; MBA and/or CPA preferred 

• 10+ years in progressively responsible financial leadership roles (e.g. controller, VP 
Finance, CFO) 

• 3+ prior years public accounting firm experience working in audit role preferred
• CPA preferred; though CPA certification need not be currently active.
• Prior experience as a key financial executive within a ‘family office’ preferred
• Prior residential construction, home building, and community development experience preferred
• Prior experience working with a variety of business model types, ranging from small business units to larger companies similar to the portfolio of companies owned by the business owners of HQ Home
• Strong FP&A skills and ability to contribute to business decision-making through timely and informed decision-making information
• Strong problem solving and creative skills and the ability to exercise sound judgment and make decisions based on accurate and timely analyses.
• Prior experience operating GAAP and WIP accounting procedures and methods mandatory 

• Experience with MS Office (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Project) and other productivity tools;
• MS Excel competency is required with demonstrated strong “Jedi-Knight” level use of this tool.
• MS SQL, MS Power BI, and an understanding of metadata analysis are essential tool sets of preferred CFO; and if candidates have a prior deep understanding of SQL and MS Power BI it will be a significant advantage for them, especially in the early phases of new CFO onboarding.
• MS OneNote or other similar tool experience preferred to help manage the many business, projects, initiatives, and financial interests of the stakeholders
• Hunter Quinn Homes currently uses the following accounting and financial control systems: SAGE 100 Contractor system for accounting functions, the landscape company (FLG) uses Quickbooks Enterprise; and our restaurants use SAGE 100 ERP or SAGE 100 Contractor.  From these applications we draw information for output in Crystal Reports, Liberty Reports, and MS Power BI.
• In terms of operations, the home building business runs on HomeFront, PLM, and InSights; prior experience with these applications would be helpful, though not required
• The landscaping company uses runs operations on ILM; prior experience is helpful, though not required
• The restaurants and stores operate on Saybertooth; again, prior experience with this application is helpful, though not required.
• Advanced experience and skill using MS Excel Workbooks 

• Being a self-starter is a must. Demonstrated ability to work alone, be self-governing, be proactive, and responsible for the accomplishment of the company mission without need for 
daily coaching or prompting from the CEO 

• Experience in using accounting packages and tools included in accounting software and CRM packages required 

• History as CFO, VP Finance, or controller with financial leadership for growth companies with $100 million to $250 million annual revenue businesses preferred. 

• Experience managing large privately held companies preferred


• Experience developing accounting and financial controls for a business conglomerate 
with a family of companies and industries preferred 

• Experience with product and service industries of similar types to HQ Home current business lines is preferred
• Experience capital formation, compliance, insurance, licensing, taxes, and other regulatory requirements are pluses. 

• While little travel is anticipated, the position is time demanding and the candidate must demonstrate that they understand the requirements of the position, the time required to complete the required duties, and a willingness to be flexible and work the required time-sensitive projects such as special projects, developer meetings, council meetings, town halls, M&A, tax preparation, audit, and other seasonal key tasks that may be undertaken from time to time. 


Compensation
Salary is negotiable and commensurate with ability. Incentive compensation is available for performance.

Timing
Hunter Quinn Homes’ CFO position is available immediately; the current CFO will remain onboard through a transition period to be determined in consultation with company ownership. We expect the ideal CFO candidate will be working with another firm and are committed to helping you transition smoothly, with a target start date in Q1 2020.