Head of Accounting UK

About Sleek

Through proprietary software and AI, along with a focus on customer delight, Sleek makes the back-office easy for micro SMEs.

We give Entrepreneurs time back to focus on what they love doing - growing their business and being with customers. With a surging number of Entrepreneurs globally, we are innovating in a highly lucrative space.

We operate 3 business segments:

1. Corporate Secretary: Automating the company incorporation, secretarial, filing, Nominee Director, mailroom and immigration processes via custom online robots and SleekSign. We are the market leaders in Singapore with ~5% market share of all new business incorporations.
2. Accounting & Bookkeeping: Redefining what it means to do Accounting, Bookkeeping, Tax and Payroll thanks to our proprietary SleekBooks ledger, AI tools and exceptional customer service.
3. FinTech payments: Overcoming a key challenge for Entrepreneurs by offering digital banking services to new businesses.

Sleek launched in 2017 and now has around 15,000 customers across our offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the UK. We have around 450 staff with an intact startup mindset.

We have achieved >70% compound annual growth in Revenue over the last 5 years and as a result have been recognised by The Financial Times, The Straits Times, Forbes and LinkedIn as one of the fastest growing companies in Asia. Backed by world-class investors, we are on track to be one of the few cash flow positive, tech-enabled unicorns based out of Singapore.

Some other great things about working at Sleek…

Humility and kindness: Humility is a core attribute we hire for, which means we have a culture of not taking ourselves too seriously and being able to laugh. Kindness is also incredibly important. We are committed to creating and nurturing a diverse and inclusive environment.

Flexibility: You’ll be able to work from home 2-3 days per week. If you need to start early or start late to cater to your family or other needs, we don’t mind, so long as you get your work done and proactively communicate. You can also work fully remote from anywhere in the world for 1 month each year.

Financial benefits: We pay competitive market salaries and provide staff with generous paid time off and holiday schedules. Additionally, you’ll be able to access our £650.00 pa flexi benefits scheme for home office equipment or health and fitness expenditure. Certain staff at Sleek are also eligible for our employee share ownership plan and can share in the upside of our stellar growth trajectory as we work toward listing on a prominent stock exchange in the Asia Pacific region.

Personal growth: You’ll get a lot of responsibility and autonomy at Sleek - we move at a fast pace so you’ll be making decisions, making mistakes and learning. There’s also a range of internal and external facing training programmes we run. We’re also at the forefront of utilising AI in our space and are developing a regional centre of AI excellence. It is our intention that if you leave Sleek, you leave as a more well-rounded person and professional.

Sleek is also a proudly certified B Corp. Since we started our journey in 2017, we’ve been committed to building Sleek as a force for good. In just over 5 years, we’ve joined a community of industry leaders like Patagonia, Ben & Jerry's, and P&G who are building an inclusive, equitable, and a regenerative economy. We have planted over 29,271 trees to reforest our ecosystem and saved 7 tons of paper from landfills by processing over 1.4M pages through SleekSign. We aim to be Carbon Neutral by 2030.

About the role

We are looking for the Head of Accounting UK, who will report to the Country Head of Sleek UK and be part of the management team. Given below is the Mission and Outcomes over the next 6-12 months.

Mission: Lead the UK accounting team, driving process transformation, compliance, and profitability. They ensure team competency and client satisfaction through timely, accurate, and high-quality deliverables.

Outcomes:

• Provide structured training and leadership to the accounting team, ensuring they stay updated on accounting standards and regulatory requirements across corporate secretarial, tax, payroll, and other services. Demonstrate expertise in ACA/ICAEW regulations and UK company setups, particularly for private limited companies.
• Ensure timely filing of corporate returns and taxes per SLAs, with 60% AR filed by month 4 and 100% by month 7, maintaining 96% client satisfaction. Aim for 70% gross profitability, excluding passthrough fees, and achieve 99% automation of key accounting tasks by 2025.
• Maintain team efficiency through timely hiring and training, swift corrective actions for staff issues, and full compliance with workflows. Contribute to continuous improvement of the accounting bot by integrating updated resources and expertise.

To do this, you will have a minimum of 15 years’ experience in client facing and handling complex accounting matters including commercial and/or audit experience. You will most likely be in or near to the Leeds or London hub.

• Recognised degree in Accountancy or equivalent.
• Professionally certified preferably with ACCA, CPA, or CA qualification and a member of ICAEW.
• Proven track record of more than 8 years of leadership experience in a fast paced and technology driven organisation.
• Good understanding of UK regulatory compliance.
• Hands-on experience with Google workspace and Microsoft applications.
• Resourceful and experience with various productivity software applicable to facilitate daily work.
• Self-motivated, positive attitude, proactive, highly-organised and detail-oriented.
• Good interpersonal and communication skills.
• Able to adapt to VUCA way of thinking and contribute to process improvement efforts.
• Able to meet tight deadlines.
• Immediate availability is preferred.

Behavioural fit is also important at Sleek, and we will be looking for candidates that have a proven track record of embodying the below attributes in their recent roles:

Ownership: This shows reliability and helps build trust within the team. We move fast and need to know that everyone will see things through to completion and proactively help to get things back on track when challenges arise. Accountability is really important to us.

Humility: There is so much we don’t know. Humility allows for open-mindedness to feedback and a willingness to learn from others. It paves the way for collaboration and creates a positive work environment. It is a key ingredient of self awareness and emotional intelligence.

Structured Thinking: Our business is complex with many layers (many services, many countries, many cultures). Regardless of whether you’re more analytical or creative in nature, being able to show sound judgement is important to us. It ensures solutions are pragmatic and balance the needs of the organisation, team and customers.

Data driven: We are a data rich business with ~15,000 small customers. Each decision we make can impact many more people than we realise - so it’s critical that we use sound data to support our strategies and review the success of our initiatives.

Can have tough conversations in a positive way: It’s not a matter of if, but when difficult interpersonal situations arise. Disagreement, conflict and disappointment are a given in a fast moving business where people care about their work. People that proactively have tough conversations with kindness build empathy, trust and great working relationships.

About the interview process

The successful candidate will participate in the below interview stages. It might seem like a lot - but fear not - we come prepared! We anticipate the process to last no more than 3 weeks from start to finish depending on your availability.

Introductory call:

• A ~30 minute video call with a member of our HR team to discuss your application and get a better understanding of your experience and expectations for the role.

Project or case study or technical test:

• If it’s a project, you’ll have 1 week to complete a short assignment related to what you’ll actually be required to do in your first month on the job. You’ll then present some slides/ designs/ a doc/ an excel model/ some code to a few members of the team, followed by Q&A.

• If it’s a case study, there’s nothing to prepare. You’ll have a ~45-60 minute chat with the Hiring Manager, where he or she will give you some real-life challenges that this role faces, and will ask for your approach to solving them.
• If it’s a technical test, it is usually a 30-50 minute online assessment that will be conducted in real-time, while a member of staff is dialled into the call.

Career deep dive:

• A ~60 minute chat with the Hiring Manager.
• We’ll discuss your last couple of roles to understand your experience in more detail.
• In addition, we’ll be trying to gauge your where your strengths lie.

Behavioural fit assessment:

• A ~60 minute chat, usually with a member of HR or the leadership team.
• We’ll dive into some recent work situations to understand how you think and work.

Reference interviews:

• We’ll have 2-3 short phone or video calls with references that you provide to us.
• So as to not delay your offer, we may ask your permission to have these calls earlier on in the interview process.

Requirement for background screening:

Please be aware that Sleek is a regulated entity and as such is required to perform different levels of background checks on staff depending on their role. This may include using external vendors to verify the below:

• Your education.
• Any criminal history.
• Any political exposure.
• Any bankruptcy or adverse credit history.

We will ask for your consent before conducting these checks. Depending on your role at Sleek, an adverse result on one of these checks may prohibit you from passing probation.