Head Administration Finance and Public Funding

Company Description

Niche Bioventures is a young holding & Venture Studio based in Paterna, Valencia, working in health and nutrition biotechnology alongside industrial and research partners across Europe, NA and Asia. We build and operate companies in the group, and we provide them with the strategic, scientific and operational backbone they need to move fast.

We are small, fast and growing. The group already generates revenue from services to its ventures and partners, that activity is increasing, and the structure around it is being built right now.

Role Description

Own our back office. All of it.

We are looking for someone to take the entire administrative and financial engine of the group, the holding and its ventures, and own it. Not support it. Own it. Right now it has no owner, and it should.

We are looking for a builder. Everything here gets built for the first time: the processes, the systems, the files, the controls, the discipline. Nobody is handing you a machine that already works. If you are at your best keeping a well-oiled function running, this is the wrong role. If you are at your best when there is nothing and you make it exist, keep reading.

You report directly to the CEO, a senior international executive in this sector, and you are the single point of contact with the accounting firm, the banks, the public funding bodies, the payroll provider and the suppliers. You build the processes, because there are none yet. You bring things to the CEO already framed with a recommendation, and you bring them rarely.

Five things sit with you:

• Public funding. Find it, win it, justify it. IVACE, CDTI, ENISA, NEOTEC, Eurostars. Eligible costs, audit-ready files, R&D tax credits. A pillar of the role, not an extra.
• Accounting and tax. The full cycle with our external firm, plus the intercompany service agreements between the holding and its ventures.
• Cash. Banking, payments, collections, budget, and telling the CEO early when something is off.
• People and purchasing. Payroll, contracts, Social Security, suppliers, insurance, and setting up our Valencia office.
• Corporate paperwork. Company documentation alongside our legal counsel, and an expense process that survives contact with a founder whose contribution is photographing a receipt when there is no way around it. Everything after that photograph is yours.

Straight talk. We are early. No structure, no finance department, no legacy processes. We would rather say it now than have you discover it in month two. There is no equity at this stage.

The role starts at half time because that is what today's volume needs, not because that is the ceiling. Activity is growing, the group is adding ventures and partners, and the administrative and financial load will grow with it. This role is designed to expand as that happens, toward full time. How fast depends on how the group performs, so we will not promise you a date. What we will say is that we are hiring the person we want running this function when it is three times the size, not the person who fits it today.

What you get: total ownership of your area, almost no bureaucracy, direct access to the CEO, real flexibility on how you organize your hours, and the freedom to build this function your way.

We move fast and we care about things getting finished, not managed. We hire builders, and we give them room. If you want to build something and grow with it, this is a good fit. If you are looking for the next rung on somebody else's ladder, it is not.

Permanent contract, starting at 50%. Hybrid, Valencia area. Fixed salary. Start date to be agreed.

To apply, use LinkedIn, in English. Tell us two things in your application: one public funding justification you prepared and what the auditor challenged, and one time you had to decide something alone because there was nobody to ask. That beats a cover letter.

Qualifications

• Fluent English, written and spoken. Non-negotiable. Our partners and our documentation are international. This is our hardest filter, so please do not apply without it.
• Ten or more years in finance and administration, including a full Spanish accounting and tax cycle you have owned yourself, start to finish, not supervised from a distance.
• Proven experience preparing and justifying public funding: CDTI, IVACE, ENISA, Horizon Europe or similar, including eligible cost tracking and audit documentation.
• Spanish statutory accounting (PGC) and tax compliance: VAT, corporate income tax, withholdings and Commercial Registry filings.
• Financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting, cash flow management and internal controls.
• Payroll and Social Security administration alongside an external provider.
• Advanced Excel, comfortable with accounting software, and willing to choose and implement the tools yourself rather than inherit them.
• A builder. You have set something up from zero before, not only run something that already worked. Tell us what you built and what it looked like before you got there.
• Autonomous and hands-on. You do the work rather than distribute it. No direct reports at this stage, though the team is growing around you and our CSO joins in the coming weeks. Very little supervision, and often you will be the only person who knows how something was done.
• Startup and biotech experience preferred. Not a hard requirement, but you will move faster if you have lived in either.
• Speed and execution. We work at startup pace, with several things running in parallel and an international setting around them. We value what gets closed.
• Based in the Valencia area, with regular in-person presence for banks, the accounting firm and the notary. Generous remote days around that.
• Discretion. You will see everything.
• Degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Economics or a related field.