Job Description

The business boasts an unrivalled people centric culture which is both dynamic and supportive earning it numerous recognition awards as a great place to work. The business is highly profitable and investing heavily making it a highly attractive proposition.
You will lead the finance activity across head office functions ensuring visibility and control of their central cost base, whilst helping to implement strategy with particular focus on financial matters and maximizing profitability through the proactive review and analysis of individual business performance ultimately challenging return on investment.

• Own end-to-end financial planning and spend forecast cycles for all central functions
• Accurate and relevant short and long-term financial plans
• Prepare and deliver accurate month-end/year-end management accounts and reporting for all central functions
• Provide monthly commentary on the overall central support spend, including key variances to plan
• Provide insightful financial analysis, in addition to reporting, and accounting advice to support strategic decision making. In particular supporting digital, commercial and marketing teams in modelling consequences of decisions and maintaining control of project costs
• Ensure all management reporting information is prepared accurately, well presented and in a timely manner
• Maintain the balance sheet control of specific head office accounts e.g. accruals/prepayments
• Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders, influencing and assisting senior leaders to make key decisions.
• Act as key stakeholder and critical friend on functional leadership decisions.
• Lead regular meetings with stakeholders to discuss variances
• Accounting for the capitalization of IT projects, covering both tangible and intangible assets, working closely with wider the capex finance team and group accounting policy team.
• Oversee the calculation of any internal divisional recharged spend, ensuring buy-in from all parties on methodology and accurate charging of spend
• Oversee the calculation of any inter-group recharged services, including ensuring buy-in from all parties on methodology and budgeting/forecasting of spend
• Provide ad-hoc financial analyses and reporting to support business queries.
• Identify and drive improvements/efficiencies in existing processes
• Guide and coach leaders/business stakeholders on finance best practice
• Help build the financial acumen of key leaders
• Acting as a financial lead on transformational projects and initiatives
• Manage and report on key risks, issues and opportunities
• Develop an understanding of central cost base cost and performance drivers to support decision making, driving efficiency and effectiveness
• Provide financial support and rigorous challenge to stakeholders to ensure effective financial planning and best use of the company's resources
• Building a strong business partnering relationship with stakeholders and collaborating across all functions to help 'join the dots' across multiple projects, work streams and functions.
• Leadership and development of one direct report

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Qualified accountant (ACA, CIMA or ACCA) with 3+ years post qualified experience.
• Finance business partnering experience with demonstrable value-add achievements
• Prior experience of cost base management, particularly in a diverse central cost environment.
• Prior experience of interacting with and presenting to board level executives.
• Strong Excel skills and ability to handle mixed data sets.
• Demonstration of core accounting skills in particular balance sheet control and ideally IT capitalization.
• Ability to self-start and manage their own and team's workload and priorities in a fast moving, dynamic environment.