Job Description

The Role

Commercial Finance provides financial insight and drives financial performance for the region by working with country clusters Commercial Finance teams, EMEA Line of Business leads, EMEA Exec team and EMEA functional teams. The objective is to improve EMEA financial performance by providing action oriented insightful financial analysis and pro-actively driving decision making based on a core of efficient and effective management reporting that provides one version of the truth for EMEA financial performance. The team consists of a management reporting team supported by an offshore reporting Center of Excellence and a team of business partners. The Commercial Finance Business Partner is a key member of the EMEA Commercial Finance team to work with the regional business & functional executives to provide actionable financial insights in their areas. The role will review and challenge financial performance of countries, brands & client contracts, identify and drive key opportunities and drive key reporting and forecasting improvements & standardization across the region. The responsibility comprises the financial performance of revenues of more than £1.3B across EMEA split across three Lines of Business (Media, Creative, CRM) and centralized functional costs to support the Lines of Business. This position will report to the Commercial Finance Director EMEA and will work collaboratively with the country and global commercial finance teams. It requires an individual who will bring strong commercial acumen and a drive for continuous improvement to this dynamic, diverse and highly ambitious company.

The role will ensure:

• Delivery of strategic objectives through financial insights & analysis
• Support and challenge of Line of Business owners in optimizing the financial performance of brands / entities in their remit
• Profit optimisation at a Line of Business, client, capability, and brand level
• High forecast accuracy / accountability and ability to steer the organisation through KPIs
• Good financial rigour by challenging & influencing a variety of stakeholders across the business
• Best practice application of commercial finance, forecasting & reporting across the region
• An active network of commercial finance business partners across the region

Key Accountabilities

Budgeting & forecasting

• Drive budgeting & forecasting with EMEA business lead to set challenging but achievable targets
• Set and govern common KPI definitions to allow for effective benchmarking & performance evaluation
• Work with local finance teams to ensure quality of forecasts and consistency in the forecasting process across countries
• Evaluate new business pipeline and key client plans
• Review and analyse actuals to discuss and action with the business leads
• Liaise with Global counterparts to ensure common practices and analysis

Financial analysis

• Partner with Line of Business and functional leads to drive profitability by advising and challenging on financial performance and investment appraisals
• Develop multiyear financial outlook and strategy in collaboration with business leads, EMEA team and global teams
• Optimize margins through benchmarking best practice application
• Identification and realization of opportunities in financial performance
• Review and challenge profitability and commercial plans of key EMEA clients
• Review and challenge functional efficiency with key functional owners
• M&A related analysis and financial integration

Key decision making

• Collect and review key financial decisions proposed by countries and prepare for EMEA / Global Executive sign off, examples are premise lease approvals and key people decisions like hiring decisions, annual salary increase & bonus budgets
• Build, evaluate & track business cases as applicable
• Support M&A analysis with commercial due diligence
• Any other analysis to support decision making as required

Commercial Finance excellence

• Promote and share commercial finance best practices across the region and with global teams
• Run projects as required to ensure efficient and effective reporting on key data points together with the Operations and HR teams at EMEA level
• Work effectively together with the management reporting team and the offshore reporting Center of Excellence

Personal Specification

• Qualified accountant or equivalent commercial finance accreditation with substantial global finance experience in a fast paced, ambitious, and multinational environment, preferably in the media & performance industry
• Proven experience of business partnering and commercial acumen, with proven capability to communicate financial performance to senior stakeholders
• At least 6 years of experience in finance business partnering of which at least 2 within a comparable role
• Strong communication, influencing, collaboration and relationship building skills
• Clear record of being curious, robust and shrewd, driving improved financial performance within a business
• A desire to work in a value driven environment, embracing a culture of energy and the DAN values:

• Agile
• Pioneering
• Ambitious
• Responsible
• Collaborative

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Qualified accountant or equivalent commercial finance accreditation with substantial global finance experience in a fast paced, ambitious, and multinational environment, preferably in the media & performance industry • Proven experience of business partnering and commercial acumen, with proven capability to communicate financial performance to senior stakeholders • At least 6 years of experience in finance business partnering of which at least 2 within a comparable role • Strong communication, influencing, collaboration and relationship building skills • Clear record of being curious, robust and shrewd, driving improved financial performance within a business • A desire to work in a value driven environment, embracing a culture of energy and the DAN values: • Agile • Pioneering • Ambitious • Responsible • Collaborative