Chief Financial Officer

About matis
Matis is regulated by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) as a Prestataire de Services de Financement Participatif (PSFP, no. FP-2023-19). It enables investors to co-invest in project companies, each holding a major 19th- or 20th-century artwork, starting from €20,000. Founded in 2023, matis operates in Europe and in the US, with entities in France, Italy, Switzerland and the United States.

Matis is moving from deal-by-deal offers to a regulated alternative investment fund, with a launch targeted for Q1 2027. The finance function has to change with it. The current externalised set-up will not continue, and redefining it is the core challenge of this role.

The role
The CFO defines, builds and leads matis's finance function, and represents it at strategic level: with investors, banks, advisers, the Board and shareholders. The role is strategic by nature and very operational in its first phase. The profile sought is an investment professional with a finance mandate, from institutional asset management or wealth management, rather than an accountant.

Redefine the finance function.
Decide what is internalised and what is outsourced (for example the financial monitoring of the fund), set the resource plan and choose the tools.
Be the voice of finance with institutional counterparts.
Build and present the group's financial story, and the financial case for art as an alternative asset class, to shareholders, banks, institutional investors and family offices.
Optimise the cross-border financial and tax architecture of the group across four jurisdictions, with external counsel, with a consolidated view of group cash and runway.
Structure strategic operations.
Assess and structure new investment vehicles, financing and partnerships, and carry them to Board decision.
Own the fund's financial governance.
Oversee the depositary and fund administrator, regulatory own funds, fees and expenses, and fundraising and liquidity tracking.
Run the essentials hands-on until the team is in place: budget, treasury plan, monthly reporting, closings, audit and internal control.

10 to 20 years of experience, with senior responsibility for investment, portfolio or alternatives activity, ready to take a first CFO seat in an entrepreneurial setting.
Must have

• Asset management expertise: asset allocation, fund selection, risk budgeting, UCITS and AIFMD.
• Private markets knowledge (private equity, real estate or venture), and if possible art and collectibles.
• Hands-on experience structuring investment vehicles, with a sound grasp of tax and regulatory aspects.
• Ability to articulate an investment strategy convincingly to investors.
• Corporate financial management (budgeting, forecasting, treasury, consolidation) and the ability to build a finance function from scratch.
• International experience in Europe and if possible in the United States.
• Fluent English, as a working language (prerequisite).
• Real, day-to-day use of AI tools such as Claude (prerequisite). matis is transforming its operating model with AI, and the CFO must work this way.

Strongly preferred

• Direct US exposure (investors, entities, fund or regulatory frameworks).
• Experience launching a fund or working day to day with a depositary and a fund administrator.
• Scale-up or founder-led experience.
• Exposure to the art market.
• Comfort in a bilingual French/English environment.

Who you are: entrepreneurial and hands-on, wanting to build a function rather than administer one; credible and discreet with institutional and private investors; rigorous with numbers; ego-light and team-first.