UAE Advise

Seeking a Qualified Accountant to help us deliver the food waste revolution – bringing profitable, sustainable, technology-enabled change to commercial kitchens

About Us

Food waste is a $1 trillion problem – costing the world over 1% of global GDP. We’re dead set on solving the problem and looking for people to help us achieve our mission. We, at Winnow, believe that food is far too valuable to waste, and that technology can transform the way we produce food. Our team is made of people who all share a passion for food and technology.

Winnow was founded in London in 2013 to help the hospitality industry prevent food waste through the internet of things tools in the kitchen. We have worked with hundreds of sites and are operating in over 30 countries around the world supported by our offices in London, Dubai, Shanghai, Singapore, Romania and North America. We are a rapidly growing company with a strong base of clients who are rolling out our system globally. We have blue-chip customers including Accor Hotels, IKEA, IHG, Marriott, Compass Group and many others.

Winnow’s clients on average reduce waste by over 50% by value and sustain savings. Winnow has now worked with hundreds of sites to reduce food waste, including hotels, universities and schools, staff restaurants, event/hospitality kitchens, buffets, pubs, and high street restaurants. Where the system is permanently adopted, pre-consumer waste value is reduced by 50% – 70% with no detrimental impact to the perceived quality or value of the offer to their customers. This represents a typical improvement of food cost savings of 3% to 8%, commonly a 40%+ increase in profitability for operations.

As the global leader in addressing food waste, we are committed to continue pushing the envelope on what technology can do to solve this problem. Winnow Vision, our new artificial intelligence-based technology, is trained to automatically track all food waste thrown away. It has won awards at the World Economic Forum and has been received tremendous enthusiasm from our clients and the industry. You can read more about it on our website and this article in Forbes.

We are passionate about living our values and place them at the centre of everything we do. We are excited about like minded talent who share these values, joining us in our mission:

• Equal parts head and heart. We’re both passionate and measured. We carefully balance the need for quick solutions and pragmatism with the ability to step back, take in the bigger picture and build for the long term.
• Bravely honest. With each other, that means we’re a transparent organisation where a healthy, respectful debate is encouraged. With our customers, we challenge them if we don’t think they’re achieving their goals, whether they be environmental or financial.
• People of action. Done is better than perfect, and we learn by boldly doing then rapidly improving. We’re breaking new ground, so we know things might go wrong. But we judge ourselves and each other on our reaction and our resilience.
• Bound by food. We’re a diverse bunch, but our belief in the value of food is the common thread in everything we do. With each other, we celebrate through our love and respect for food. With our customers, it means we work hard to develop creative tools to make it easy for chefs to value food.
• Hungry and humble. Our product is revolutionary, our people are impressive, and we’re hungry for change. But, we’re just the catalyst for a bigger movement. We stay humble regardless of our success, and make chefs the heroes in this journey.
• People and Planet Positive. We’re caretakers of the planet, helping to preserve and support it for now and the future. Our work already minimises the impact that the hospitality industry has on the planet, and we’re also committed to actively reducing our own footprint while doing so. We’re leaving the planet and its people better off than we found them

This is an opportunity to join a rapidly growing start-up (and one of Wired’s top 100 start-ups in Europe) and help us propel our growth at what is truly the most exciting and dynamic points in time in our business. You will work alongside a driven team who are motivated by building an exciting business and leaving the world a better place than we found it.

Key objectives of role:

• Reporting to the CFO/Founder, managing an Accounts Assistant and Data Analyst, you’ll work within a driven team, dually motivated by building an exciting business and leaving the world a better place than we found it
• Build and update financial projections, forecasts, budgets, and business metrics
• Lead the annual budgeting and audit processes
• Manage cashflow and funding needs across multiple entities
• Support fundraising efforts, including materials preparation, document review, and investor communications as well as finding optimal financing sources and helping set the funding plan
• Help create, control, and administrate Winnow’s various legal entities around the world, including group financial consolidations
• Negotiate contracts and ensure successful engagement with suppliers
• Manage payroll, onboarding, offboarding, expenses, bank accounts, ESOP, company valuations, exchange rate policies and so forth
• Help analyse opportunities for Winnow, to support decision making on how we continue to grow, where we focus efforts to improve, and which projects we pursue
• Provide the voice of Finance in team and management discussions

You need to be comfortable both as a detail-driven finance professional who can soon be relied upon to take care of the day-to-day with minimal supervision, and a dynamic, strategic thinker who pragmatically designs and implements steps to mature and improve Winnow across all aspects of Finance at an impressive clip. You will spend significant time designing and supporting strategic plans for the overall group. Success will require an ability to constantly assess and reorder priorities in an ever-changing environment full of uncertainties and possibilities. The right candidate finds this invigorating, not intimidating.

Experience

Requirements

• Qualified accountant with solid post qualification bookkeeping/accounting experience
• Ideally has experience working in a Finance Team
  Core Skills

• Clear understanding of accounting and GAAP
• Financial analysis, modelling, and forecasting
• Knowledge of industry standard Finance processes, including invoicing and A/R management, A/P management, budgeting
• Effective communicator, able to engage at all levels in internally and externally
• A strong drive, work ethic, and constant desire to improve
• Thrives in a fast-changing environment
• Has an entrepreneurial mindset and enjoys taking initiative

Helpful Additions

• Language skills
• Technology skills, such as programming, design
• Training or other public speaking experience
• Economics, MBA, CFA, CFP, or similar qualification
• Knowledge of Lean theory/practice
• Exposure to Prince 2, Six Sigma or similar
• Coding, product design, or other “tech” capabilities
  Benefits

We offer:

• Competitive base salary
• Company stock options package
• Life insurance
• 2 Wellness hours per month, plus a AED 102 monthly wellness allowance
• Employee Assistance Programme – 24/7 helpline for your wellbeing
• 23 days of paid vacation time (plus the option to buy a further 5 days annual leave) in addition to national holidays
• You will love what you do – waking up every day solving one of the biggest social problems of our generation
• Committed team members with broad experience who share a common passion to build a world class business