Deputy Chief Executive Officer - Finance & Operations

From the advert

Community Academies Trust (CAT) are seeking an exceptional Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Finance and Operations) to join our Trust Executive Team at a pivotal moment in our development. We are looking for a collaborative, values-led and technically strong finance and operations leader whose application clearly reflects their own experience, judgement and motivation. This is a significant executive leadership opportunity to help shape the next chapter of our strategic development.

Working closely with our newly appointed Chief Executive, you will lead the Trust’s financial and operational functions and support the CEO on key strategic matters, ensuring that our schools are supported with clarity, confidence and care.

As our Trust’s Chief Finance Officer and Company Secretary, you will provide strategic leadership for finance, HR, operations, estates, IT, data protection, health and safety, compliance and risk. You will strengthen systems, support long-term financial planning, ensure effective statutory reporting and governance assurance, and represent our Trust with confidence.

Community Academies Trust is a values-driven organisation with a clear mission: to ensure excellent community education. We serve 17 schools and over 7,600 pupils across the Midlands, many in areas of significant disadvantage. Our schools are deeply rooted in their communities, and we are proud of our commitment to preserving local identity and ethos while driving educational excellence. The Trust is in robust financial health with an annual turnover of £58 million and a staff count of over 1,100.

Across CAT, you’ll find schools that are:

• Relentless about excellent academic, personal and social outcomes for every child.
• Driven by the moral purpose of community-based improvement and shared system leadership.
• Supportive, outward-looking and genuinely committed to one another's success.
• Built on true partnership - valuing every school equally, whatever its phase, size or context.
• Proudly Trust-minded: we celebrate success, share learning and own outcomes together.

At CAT we hold a simple belief: children and young people thrive when they are known well, their needs are met, and adults stay ambitious for them. That’s our everyday mindset—doing the right work, for the right child, every day.

We are seeking a qualified accountant and credible senior leader who can demonstrate, through specific examples from their own career, that they:

• Has substantial senior leadership experience in finance and operations, ideally within a complex education, public sector or multi-site organisation
• Brings strong technical expertise as a qualified accountant, with a proven track record of long-term financial planning, risk management, statutory reporting and governance assurance
• Can lead people, resources, systems and organisational change with clarity, credibility and sound judgement
• Is committed to high-quality education, strong governance, effective support for schools and the values of excellence, integrity, collaboration, inclusion and aspiration
• Communicates complex matters clearly, builds strong relationships across the Trust and beyond, and brings warmth, confidence and professionalism to executive leadership

Your application should be personal to you and written in your own voice. Please use your supporting statement to explain why this role and CAT matter to you, and to provide concise, specific examples of decisions you have made, challenges you have addressed and outcomes for which you were personally accountable.

Shortlisted candidates should expect the selection process to explore the evidence in their application in depth. This may include discussion of the examples provided, scenario-based assessment and written or presentation activity completed as part of the process.

We actively encourage candidates to have a conversation about the role before making a formal application. You can arrange this with Lois Gordon, current Deputy CEO (Finance & Operations), by emailing Rebecca Shakespeare at [email protected]

Community Academies Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment; the successful candidate will be required to undergo appropriate vetting checks, including DBS, online checks and references.

Please note that we are not inviting applications from candidates who applied during the previous recruitment process.

For the closing date, application pack and details of the selection timetable, please refer to the published vacancy information.