Career Memorandum Example — Alexandra Pemberton | Headhunters International

If you know your career is stronger than your CV, you have the same problem as Alex.

You have built things, fixed things, led teams through difficult stretches — and a CV that turns all of it into a list of job titles and bullet points that look the same as everyone else's. The Career Memorandum below is a different format: every outcome evidenced, every claim one click from its source, the full shape of the career visible in a single document. Read it the way a board or a search firm would. Then ask whether yours does the same work.

Alexandra Pemberton · Executive Career Memorandum
Executive Career Memorandum

Alexandra
Pemberton

Group CFO, regulated asset management. Seventeen years across UK, Switzerland, and Luxembourg.

Based · London / Zurich
Availability · Q3 2026
Signature Achievements
11mo
FCA Section 166 remediation closed at Aldermore against a 22-month original plan; supervisory rating moved red to green at first post-closure review
£2.4bn
AUM scale of Keswick Vale Asset Management on departure — finance platform built from a £300m run-rate function over five years
7yrs
Consecutive clean external audits as Group CFO. Zero qualifications, zero management letter points across the period
94 → 41
Working-capital cycle compression on EMEA trading book, FY22 — £6.2m liquidity released (Financial News)
£780m
Regulatory-capital raised across three issuances under Basel III tightening, two completed inside the COVID volatility window
180 → 640
Finance, ops and risk headcount built across UK, DACH and Nordics. Attrition held under 8% versus the 19% peer average over the period

Group Chief Financial Officer with seventeen years inside regulated asset management. Trained initially as a financial-services auditor at a top-ten firm, qualified ACA in 2010, then moved into operating finance as Deputy CFO of a FTSE 250 group before being appointed Group CFO at Keswick Vale Asset Management in 2018.

Twice appointed to finance functions under live FCA Section 166 notice; both remediations closed within the originally projected timetable. Seven consecutive clean external audits across her Group CFO tenure. Led three regulatory-capital raises totalling £780m under Basel III tightening, including two executed during the COVID volatility window. Also serves as a non-executive director of a UK-regulated specialist lender.

Sector specialisms include UK and Swiss regulated asset management, UCITS and AIFMD-supervised vehicles, M&A integration in financial services, and post-Brexit legal-entity restructuring. Works in English, professional German, and conversational French.

At scale.

Largest AUM stewarded
£2.4bn
Keswick Vale Asset Management at end of CFO tenure, 2023
Largest team led
640
Finance, ops, and risk — Keswick Vale, 2018–2023
Largest P&L held
£312m
EBIT, Keswick Vale Asset Management FY22
Cost-base under leadership
£225m
Cumulative across CFO tenures, Aldermore + Keswick Vale
On-time delivery
100%
Tracked programmes — all hit board-committed dates
Under-budget delivery
82%
9 of 11 programmes closed below approved envelope
Countries operated in
14
UK, CH, DE, AT, LUX, IE, NL, FR, IT, DK, SE, NO, US, SG
Regulatory-capital raises
£780m
Three successful raises under Basel III tightening

Roles held, outcomes delivered.

Budget owned
£68m
Team size
210
P&L
£184m EBIT
Reports into
Group CEO
Geography
UK · CH · LUX
On-time
100%
Under-budget
67%
Audit status
Clean

Joined 90 days into the FCA Section 166 notice that had been issued the previous quarter. The prior CFO had left within the first month of the notice; the finance function was carrying a three-year failed remediation programme. Brief from the board was narrow: close the 166, pass the next external audit clean, retain the trading desks.

Selected achievements
  • Closed the Section 166 remediation in 11 months against the firm's original 22-month plan; FCA supervisory rating lifted from red to green at first post-closure review (FCA closure letter, 2024).
  • Removed £14.2m of annual run-rate cost through a finance-and-risk operating-model redesign while maintaining front-office control-function headcount.
  • Delivered the first clean external audit in the firm's history — zero management letter points, FY24, PwC lead partner.
  • Rebuilt the board finance pack from a 94-page monthly document to a 22-page decision pack. Chair recorded the change as the year's most useful governance improvement in the 2024 NED survey.
  • Led the £180m regulatory-capital raise executed in Q2 2024 under Basel III tightening; priced inside the preceding comparable issuance by 35 bps (Financial Times, June 2024).
  • Reopened the Luxembourg regulated entity with the CSSF inside 8 months — peer average for re-authorisation: 14 months.
Position on departure / current status Business is in its third clean cycle. Board has confirmed internal succession plan for the CFO seat.
Budget owned
£126m
Team size
640
P&L
£312m EBIT
Reports into
Group CEO
Geography
14 countries
On-time
100%
Under-budget
89%
Tenure
5.1 years

Joined as the firm approached its £1bn AUM inflection, with a finance function designed for a £300m business. Five-year brief was to build the platform to support £2.5bn AUM, absorb three confirmed acquisitions, and close out the post-Brexit legal-entity restructuring. Finance headcount 180 at start, 640 at end.

Selected achievements
  • Scaled finance, operations and risk from 180 to 640 heads over 38 months while holding attrition at under 8% — industry average over the same period: 19%.
  • Delivered seven consecutive clean external audits (2018–2023), including two during the COVID operational-risk period when 62% of peer firms recorded at least one qualification.
  • Integrated three acquisitions — combined transaction value £310m — all completed on-schedule and within revised integration targets, delivering £43m annual run-rate cost removal (Reuters coverage).
  • Executed two regulatory-capital raises totalling £420m, including the March 2020 issuance priced at the tightest spread of any asset-manager raise in the quarter.
  • Rebuilt EMEA working-capital cycle from 94 to 41 days on the trading book (FY22), releasing £6.2m of liquidity and improving group interest cover by 1.3 turns (Financial News, March 2022).
  • Chaired the post-Brexit legal-entity restructuring — 11 entities, 4 jurisdictions covering the FCA, CSSF, CBI, and FINMA regimes; zero tax leakage, completed 90 days inside the planned window.
  • Shortlisted in Financial News "CFO of the Year" 2022 (shortlist announcement).
Position on departure AUM at £2.4bn (brief: £2.5bn), EBIT at £312m, finance function rated Tier 1 by all three major benchmark studies conducted during her tenure.
Budget owned
£31m
Team size
95
P&L
N/A — Deputy
Reports into
Group CFO
Geography
UK · EU · US
On-time
100%
Under-budget
100%
Tenure
3.8 years

Hired as group close lead with an explicit succession line to the CFO role. Reporting remit widened within six months to include investor relations and, eighteen months in, the carve-out of the group's non-core European insurance book — a transaction the board had deferred for three years.

Selected achievements
  • Reduced group close time from 14 to 6 working days over 18 months — held at 6 days for the remainder of her tenure without incident.
  • Led the £190m carve-out of the European insurance book to Allianz affiliates; completed 7 weeks inside the original timetable (Chartwell press release).
  • Authored the investor-reporting redesign adopted in FY16; analyst coverage forecast accuracy improved from ±8% to ±3% of consensus over the subsequent four quarters.
  • Represented the CFO on the Audit Committee for the year of the 2016 external auditor rotation — managed the transition from EY to Deloitte with zero adverse opening entries.
  • Mentored three direct reports into Group Financial Controller roles at listed peers; each promoted within 14 months of moving on.
Reason for leaving External approach to the Group CFO role at Keswick Vale Asset Management.
Clients led
14
Largest client
£1.8bn AUM
Team size
22
Reports into
FS Audit Partner
Geography
UK · CI · LUX
Utilisation
96%
Tenure
7.1 years
Qualification
ACA 2010

Graduate-to-senior-manager career at a top-ten firm. Specialised in regulated asset-management and private-equity valuation audits; promoted on the accelerated track — four years to manager against the firm's five-year median.

Selected achievements
  • Promoted to Senior Manager 18 months ahead of the firm's median timeline for the FS Audit practice.
  • Audit lead on 14 regulated asset managers, largest client £1.8bn AUM; zero prior-period restatements across her portfolio.
  • Authored the firm's internal technical manual on IFRS 13 valuation hierarchy applied to private-credit books — still in use at the firm in 2024.
  • Qualified ACA in 2010; named on the 2013 "Partner-Track Cohort" list before exiting to take the Deputy CFO role at Chartwell.
Reason for leaving Move from external assurance into operating finance at Chartwell Group plc.

Executive education.

9-week executive programme; cohort of 162 senior leaders from 41 countries.
Completed 2024
IFC-certified board-director qualification. Focus on non-executive governance in regulated markets.
Completed 2021
Senior finance-leadership programme covering CFO–CEO partnership and capital allocation.
Completed 2019
Qualified through Hendricks & Moore training contract; specialism in financial services audit.
Qualified 2010
MBA (Distinction)
Dissertation on capital-structure optimisation in regulated asset managers, later published in the Journal of Financial Regulation.
Completed 2013
MA (Hons) Economics & Philosophy
First-class honours; Carnegie Trust scholarship holder.
Graduated 2007
Chief Finance Function and Executive Director approvals held continuously since 2018.
Active
Executive coaching
18-month engagement 2022–2023 focused on chair-to-CFO interface and succession architecture.
Completed 2023
Languages
English · German · French
Native English. Professional working German (C1, Goethe Institut 2019). Conversational French.
Verified

Sector expertise.

Functional specialisms
  • Group finance leadership13 yrs
  • Regulatory capital & Basel III11 yrs
  • Section 166 remediationTwice-led
  • M&A integration (sell & buy side)£500m+ executed
  • Audit & external assurance17 yrs
  • Investor relations7 yrs
  • IFRS 13 private-credit valuationFirm technical author
Sectors & regulation
  • UK regulated asset management (FCA)Primary
  • Swiss FINMA supervisedPrimary
  • Luxembourg CSSF (UCITS / AIFMD)Primary
  • CBI IrelandAdjacent
  • Private equity / private creditOperating
  • Insurance (non-core carve-out)Transactional
  • UK listed group reportingDeputy CFO level
Availability
Q3 2026 onwards
References
Available on request
Executive Career Memorandum · Alexandra Pemberton Updated April 2026