Some finance roles involve managing a single company’s books. Others involve overseeing a department. And then there are roles like this one, positions that sit at the very apex of an organisation’s financial architecture, shaping capital allocation decisions worth billions of naira, influencing which businesses get built or acquired, and directly determining whether an entire diversified industrial group thrives or falters over the coming decade. This is exactly the level of responsibility Bridgemead Advisory is recruiting for with its search for a Group Executive Director of Finance (GED-F), a senior executive position for a diversified Holdings Group spanning steel manufacturing, mining, and energy operations, based in Lagos.
This is not a role for the early or mid-career finance professional. It’s an opportunity aimed squarely at seasoned, battle-tested finance executives who have already spent decades building the kind of strategic financial judgment required to steer a complex, multi-sector industrial conglomerate through growth, risk, and transformation.
Who Is Bridgemead Advisory, and What Group Is Behind This Role?
Bridgemead Advisory appears to be operating as the recruitment and advisory partner managing this executive search on behalf of its client, a diversified Holdings Group with operations spanning steel manufacturing, mining, and energy sectors, industries collectively categorized in this listing under Mining, Energy & Metals. While the specific holding company isn’t named directly, the scale and structure described throughout the listing, a multi-subsidiary conglomerate with a Group CEO, a Board, an Executive Leadership Team, and operations spanning multiple heavy industrial sectors, points clearly to a substantial, well-established industrial group with significant capital, complexity, and ambition.
Bridgemead Advisory’s role in managing this search reflects a common and sensible practice at the executive level: organisations recruiting for their most senior finance positions frequently partner with specialized advisory or executive search firms to access a wider, more carefully vetted pool of candidates, and to manage the discretion and rigor that C-suite recruitment typically demands.
The Job at a Glance
Here’s a quick overview of the opportunity before exploring the substantial responsibilities and requirements in detail:
- Job Title: Group Executive Director, Finance (GED-F)
- Recruiting Firm: Bridgemead Advisory
- Department: Accounting, Auditing & Finance
- Location: Lagos, Nigeria
- Employment Type: Full Time
- Industry: Mining, Energy & Metals (Steel Manufacturing, Mining, and Energy)
- Remuneration: NGN 2,000,000 – NGN 3,000,000 Monthly (Negotiable)
- Minimum Qualification: MBA / MSc
- Experience Level: Executive level
- Experience Required: 18 years (with a preferred range of 18–25 years)
- Language Requirement: English
- Working Hours: Full Time, 8am to 5pm
- Applicant Location Requirement: Lagos, Nigeria
- Reports To: Group CEO
With the overview established, let’s take a comprehensive look at what this executive role genuinely demands, the scope of authority and responsibility it carries, and what kind of leader Bridgemead Advisory’s client is seeking.
What Does the Group Executive Director of Finance Actually Do?
The job summary frames the role in unmistakably strategic terms: the GED-F will provide strategic financial leadership across the diversified Holdings Group, reporting directly to the Group CEO, and driving the Group’s financial strategy, capital allocation, investment decisions, financial governance, and long-term value creation, all while partnering closely with the Board and Executive Leadership Team. Let’s break down the extensive responsibilities outlined in the listing.
Developing and Executing the Group’s Financial Strategy
At the very top of this role’s mandate is the responsibility to develop and execute the Group’s overall financial strategy, ensuring it remains tightly aligned with the organisation’s broader corporate growth objectives. This is genuinely strategic, top-of-house work, requiring the GED-F to think well beyond routine financial management and instead architect the financial roadmap that will guide the entire Group’s expansion, investment, and long-term positioning across its steel, mining, and energy businesses.
Leading Group Budgeting, Planning, Forecasting, and Performance Management
Beyond strategy formulation, the GED-F carries direct responsibility for leading group-wide budgeting, financial planning, forecasting, and performance management. Given the multi-subsidiary structure of this Holdings Group, this responsibility requires the ability to consolidate and reconcile financial planning across genuinely distinct business units, each likely operating with its own specific market dynamics, capital needs, and performance drivers, while still maintaining a coherent, unified view of the Group’s overall financial health and trajectory.
Overseeing Treasury, Capital Structure, Liquidity, and Financing
Managing the Group’s financial foundation is another core responsibility. The GED-F oversees treasury operations, capital structure decisions, liquidity management, and broader financing activities across the organisation. For a diversified industrial group operating in capital-intensive sectors like steel manufacturing, mining, and energy, this responsibility carries enormous weight; these industries typically require substantial ongoing capital investment, making sound treasury and capital structure management absolutely critical to the Group’s financial stability and growth capacity.
Ensuring Regulatory Compliance and Corporate Governance
The GED-F must ensure the Group’s compliance with IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards), statutory regulations, tax obligations, and broader corporate governance requirements. Given the scale, complexity, and multi-sector nature of this organisation’s operations, maintaining rigorous compliance across all these dimensions simultaneously represents a genuinely significant and ongoing responsibility, protecting the Group from regulatory, legal, and reputational risk.
Driving Enterprise-Wide Financial Risk Management
Beyond compliance, the GED-F leads enterprise-wide financial risk management and the development of internal control frameworks across the Group. This proactive risk management responsibility ensures the organisation isn’t just reacting to financial risks as they emerge, but has robust systems in place to identify, assess, and mitigate risk across its diverse portfolio of businesses and sectors.
Leading Financial Due Diligence, Valuations, M&A, and Investment Appraisals
Given the diversified, multi-subsidiary nature of this Holdings Group, mergers, acquisitions, and investment decisions likely form a significant, ongoing part of its growth strategy. The GED-F leads financial due diligence processes, valuations, M&A transactions, and investment appraisals, providing the rigorous financial analysis and judgment needed to guide the Group’s expansion and investment decisions responsibly.
Managing Relationships With Banks, Investors, DFIs, and Regulators
External stakeholder management forms a substantial part of this executive role. The GED-F manages relationships with banks, investors, development finance institutions (DFIs), and regulators, ensuring the Group maintains strong, productive relationships with the external financial ecosystem it depends on for financing, investment, and regulatory standing. This responsibility is echoed again later in the listing, specifically emphasizing the importance of managing relationships with banks, DFIs, and capital markets to secure competitive financing for the Group’s operations and growth initiatives.
Building and Mentoring a High-Performing Group Finance Function
Beyond external and strategic responsibilities, the GED-F also carries direct leadership responsibility internally, building and mentoring a high-performing Group Finance function while driving finance transformation and digitalization initiatives. This reflects the reality that even the most sophisticated financial strategy ultimately depends on a strong, capable team to execute it, and the GED-F is expected to actively invest in developing that internal capability while also modernizing the Group’s financial systems and processes.
Chairing the Group Risk Committee and Reporting to the Board
The GED-F chairs or co-chairs the Group Risk Committee and reports directly to the Board Audit & Risk Committee regarding the organisation’s financial risk exposure. This governance responsibility places the GED-F in direct, regular engagement with the Group’s Board, providing critical financial risk oversight and ensuring the Board maintains clear visibility into the organisation’s financial risk landscape.
Overseeing Post-Acquisition Financial Integration
Given the Group’s likely ongoing M&A activity, the GED-F also oversees post-acquisition financial integration and value-realization tracking. This ensures that once acquisitions are completed, the anticipated financial value and synergies from those transactions are actually realized and properly integrated into the Group’s broader financial structure and performance, rather than existing merely as theoretical value on paper.
Evaluating Investment Proposals From Subsidiaries
Finally, the GED-F evaluates investment proposals submitted by the Group’s various subsidiaries and recommends capital allocation priorities directly to the Board. This responsibility places the GED-F at the center of one of the most consequential decisions any diversified conglomerate faces: determining which businesses, projects, and opportunities within the Group deserve priority access to the organisation’s finite capital resources.
What Bridgemead Advisory’s Client Is Looking For
Given the seniority and strategic weight of this role, the qualification requirements are correspondingly rigorous and specific.
Educational Background
The minimum qualification is a Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related discipline, with an MBA or Master’s degree explicitly listed as an added advantage, and indeed noted as the minimum qualification standard for the role overall. This reflects the genuinely advanced academic grounding expected at this executive level of financial leadership.
Mandatory Professional Certification
The listing is explicit and firm on this point: ACA, ACCA, CPA, CFA, or an equivalent professional qualification is mandatory. Unlike some of the softer “added advantage” language used elsewhere in the listing, this professional certification requirement is non-negotiable, reflecting the deep technical financial credibility expected of anyone stepping into this role.
18 to 25 Years of Progressive Finance Leadership Experience
Candidates need a substantial 18 to 25 years of progressive finance leadership experience, including at least 8 years specifically at Group CFO, Executive Director Finance, or an equivalent executive level. This is a genuinely senior, late-career requirement, reflecting the reality that this role demands not just technical financial expertise, but the kind of seasoned strategic judgment, stakeholder management skill, and executive presence that can only be built through many years of progressively senior financial leadership experience.
Proven Experience Within Heavy Industries
The listing specifically requires proven experience within heavy industries such as Steel Manufacturing, Mining, Energy, Oil & Gas, or Industrial Manufacturing. This sector-specific requirement is significant; heavy industrial businesses carry distinct financial characteristics compared to other sectors, including substantial capital intensity, long investment horizons, complex project financing needs, and sector-specific regulatory and operational considerations. Candidates without this specific industry background, even with strong general finance leadership experience, may find themselves at a meaningful disadvantage for this particular role.
Experience Managing Finance Within Multi-Subsidiary Structures
Given the Group’s diversified, conglomerate structure, candidates need strong, demonstrated experience specifically managing finance within a multi-subsidiary or conglomerate organisational structure. This is a genuinely distinct skill set compared to managing finance within a single, unified business, requiring the ability to consolidate, coordinate, and oversee financial performance and strategy across genuinely different business units and sectors simultaneously.
Demonstrated Expertise Across Multiple Corporate Finance Domains
The listing requires demonstrated expertise across a substantial range of corporate finance domains: corporate finance broadly, treasury management, capital markets engagement, project finance, and investment management. This breadth of required expertise reflects just how comprehensive the GED-F’s financial oversight responsibilities genuinely are across this diversified industrial Group.
Experience Engaging Boards, Investors, Financial Institutions, and Regulators
Finally, candidates need proven experience engaging directly with Boards, investors, financial institutions, and regulators. This stakeholder engagement requirement reflects the genuinely high-level, external-facing dimension of this executive role, requiring polished, confident communication and relationship-building skills at the very highest levels of the business and financial ecosystem.
Understanding the Broader Competency Framework
Beyond the specific qualifications and experience requirements, the listing outlines a broader set of core competencies expected of the successful candidate: strategic financial leadership, executive and board-level stakeholder management, corporate finance and capital management, financial governance and risk management, mergers and acquisitions expertise, commercial acumen, leadership and team development capability, and, notably, high integrity and sound judgment.
This final competency, integrity and sound judgment, deserves particular attention. At this level of financial leadership, where the GED-F holds significant influence over capital allocation, M&A decisions, and financial governance across a major industrial group, unwavering ethical integrity and consistently sound decision-making aren’t just desirable traits; they’re absolutely foundational to the trust the Board, investors, and broader organisation must be able to place in this individual.
Understanding the Compensation Package
The remuneration for this Group Executive Director of Finance position is set at NGN 2,000,000 to NGN 3,000,000 monthly, explicitly noted as negotiable. This represents genuinely substantial executive-level compensation, appropriately reflecting the extraordinary scope of responsibility, the extensive experience requirements, and the significant strategic and financial impact this role carries across a diversified, multi-sector industrial Holdings Group.
The negotiable nature of this compensation range suggests that Bridgemead Advisory’s client is prepared to structure a competitive package tailored to the specific experience, track record, and value the successful candidate brings, which is standard practice at this executive level, where compensation packages often include additional elements beyond base salary, such as performance bonuses, equity considerations, or other executive benefits, that may be discussed and finalized directly during the negotiation process.
A Look at the Working Structure
The role follows standard full-time working hours from 8am to 5pm, based in Lagos, Nigeria. However, candidates at this executive level should recognize that formal working hours often represent only a baseline framework rather than a complete picture of the role’s actual time demands. Given the scope of responsibilities, spanning Board engagement, external stakeholder management, M&A activity, and enterprise-wide financial oversight, genuine commitment and availability well beyond standard hours should be expected as a normal part of executive-level responsibility.
Why This Role Represents a Career-Defining Executive Opportunity
For finance executives who have spent decades building toward the very top of their profession, this Group Executive Director of Finance role represents precisely the kind of career-defining opportunity that comes along rarely. Leading the financial strategy and governance of a diversified, multi-sector industrial conglomerate offers an extraordinary breadth and depth of executive challenge: shaping capital allocation across genuinely different business sectors, engaging directly with Boards and top-tier financial institutions, leading complex M&A and investment decisions, and ultimately playing a direct, consequential role in determining the long-term trajectory and value creation of a major industrial group.
This kind of role also offers significant reputational and network value within Nigeria’s broader business and financial community, positioning the successful candidate among the country’s most senior financial executives operating within critical, capital-intensive industrial sectors.
Tips for Applicants Who Want to Stand Out
If you’re considering putting yourself forward for this Group Executive Director of Finance position, here are some practical considerations to strengthen your candidacy.
Clearly articulate your heavy industry experience. Given how explicitly this requirement is stated, ensure your candidacy materials and conversations with Bridgemead Advisory clearly demonstrate your specific experience within steel manufacturing, mining, energy, oil and gas, or industrial manufacturing sectors, along with the particular financial complexities you’ve navigated within these industries.
Emphasize your multi-subsidiary or conglomerate finance leadership experience. Since this structural experience is explicitly required, be prepared to discuss in detail how you’ve successfully managed financial strategy, consolidation, and governance across multiple distinct business units or subsidiaries in previous roles.
Highlight your Board and executive stakeholder engagement track record. Given the significant governance and external stakeholder responsibilities embedded throughout this role, be ready to discuss specific examples of your experience engaging directly with Boards, major investors, financial institutions, and regulators at a senior executive level.
Demonstrate your M&A and capital allocation track record with specific examples. Given the substantial emphasis on mergers, acquisitions, investment appraisal, and capital allocation throughout this role, prepare to discuss specific, significant transactions or investment decisions you’ve led or been centrally involved in throughout your career.
Ensure your professional certification is clearly documented. Since ACA, ACCA, CPA, CFA, or an equivalent qualification is explicitly mandatory, make sure this credential is clearly and prominently presented in your candidacy materials.
Prepare to discuss your approach to financial governance and risk management. Given the significant emphasis on this area, including chairing the Group Risk Committee and reporting to the Board Audit & Risk Committee, be ready to articulate your philosophy and track record specifically around enterprise-wide financial risk management and governance.
Final Thoughts: A Rare, High-Stakes Executive Opportunity in Nigerian Industry
The Group Executive Director of Finance position, recruited through Bridgemead Advisory on behalf of a diversified industrial Holdings Group, represents one of the more significant executive finance opportunities currently available within Nigeria’s steel, mining, and energy sectors. With substantial compensation of NGN 2,000,000 to NGN 3,000,000 monthly, negotiable based on experience, and a mandate that spans nearly every critical dimension of group-wide financial leadership, this role offers exactly the kind of scope, complexity, and strategic influence that defines a genuine career-capstone executive position.
For finance leaders who have spent 18 or more years building toward this level, ideally within heavy industrial sectors and multi-subsidiary organisational structures, this opportunity offers the chance to apply that hard-earned expertise and judgment at the very highest level, shaping the financial future of a major, diversified industrial group operating at the heart of Nigeria’s steel, mining, and energy landscape.