Finance business partner, senior manager

The Senior Business Manager role is the finance business partner to the brand VP/GMs of the UK business, supporting on day-to-day operational issues and P&L management decisions to bigger picture, medium to long term strategic thinking including the preparation of key decks for regional, global and VIP visit presentations. They are the finance representative and as such are the key UK finance contact for Global/EUKEM stakeholders supporting with all global/regional demands for the assigned brand clusters and are responsible for explaining the total financial performance and outlook.

The Senior Business Manager oversees financial long-range planning and strategy, the annual planning cycle and the monthly estimate submission in addition to supporting aspects of the monthly close. Alongside this, the Business Manager provides ongoing commercial support including resource allocation, analysing new initiatives and playing a key role in linking financial and supply chain planning, supporting marketing and external media partners on total consumer facing investment planning with revenue and brand equity goals in mind, and supporting brand GM and marketing team on developing and executing an effective pricing strategy.

They add insight based on analysis of performance, industry dynamics, macro-economic trends and the competitor landscape and link financial reports to business strategies, influencing to ensure key operational, commercial and financial targets are delivered. The Senior Business Manager is a core member of the Finance Team, working collaboratively with fellow Business Partners, brand teams and operational teams to ensure best practice in a role that requires considerable cross-functional interaction with a mix of finance and non-finance stakeholders.

A key responsibility is to own One Stream reporting, ensuring ELC book of records is accurate & correct, working closely with global teams and brand finance to ensure classification at category and channel is aligned to performance. The Senior Business Manager is directly supported by an FP&A resource for which there is line management responsibility as well as support from managed services.

Responsibilities

Strategy, Planning and Estimate process

• Contributes to elements of the strategic direction for the functions
• Evaluates financial impact of strategic choices and suggests alternatives
• Delivers the annual budget and ongoing financial estimates in conjunction with brand teams in line with Global/Regional deadlines and strategic priorities
• Robustly challenges estimates to ensure gaps are identified & addressed, providing objective and independent view

Controls

• OPEX and ensures effective resource allocation
• Drives improvements in estimate accuracy

Business Partnering & Performance Management

• Drives a commercial approach and understanding, using insightful analysis to drive business change
• Ensures relevant, accurate financial and commercial reporting is delivered by FP&A teams on a timely basis to support business decisions with actionable insights provided
• Understands the competitive pressures that the business faces and their potential implications and provides business alternatives/solutions
• Continually challenges current thinking and makes recommendations on how to optimise business opportunities and minimise risk/cost to the business

Decision support:

• analysing new initiatives, ensuring financial viability and ROI of all decisions
• Leads financial discussion in Regional/Global Brand reviews ensuring key issues are surfaced, explained and debated collaboratively
• Provides insight, joining the dots between finance and other data sources for example external economic data, Market data, CRM data etc

Financial Control

• Upholds accounting principles and ensures proper processes are adhered to within the brand teams & FP&A team

Leadership

• Line management and development of FP&A Resource(s)
• Key member of the UK FP&A Function (comprising brand FP&A, Central FP&A “CoEs” and Regional FP&A), supports department wide initiatives and goals

Qualifications

Candidates should have previous business partnering experience with senior leadership, preferably working in a rapidly changing environment (ideally retail/FMCG) Excellent stakeholder management skills including relationship building, conflict resolution, influencing with ability to communicate clearly at all levels and explain financial issues to a non -financial audience Commercially astute with ability to apply analytical skills beyond the traditional functions of finance and to bring them to bear on a broad range of commercial issues and influence decisions beyond the numbers. Agile mindset, able to manage deadlines across multiple stakeholders (local and global) in a complex organisation. Regular travel between both Fareham office (where FP&A team is based) and London office (where brand teams and senior leaders are based) is essential. Additional hours are required to support key deadlines.