Head of Finance, Financial Control

The role holder is also required to demonstrate strong leadership in building a culture of finance awareness across the business to drive continuous improvement; providing a source of high quality advice on financial issues which is relevant, easily understood and drives the Finance function's strategic initiative to enable our client to deliver its value potential, whilst ensuring that there are no surprises.

The Head of Finance, Financial Control will lead, develop and motivate their team to deliver financial excellence for the business and to achieve objectives within Finance and overall company objectives. They will also develop excellent working relationships across the Finance teams and Leadership teams across the business, where alignment on technical solutions to business problems is critical.

The candidate should have a strong ability in simplifying and communicating effectively at a senior level complex messages, challenging constructively, displaying a broad knowledge of financial concepts, and ability to drive forward and lead the business and teams through complex and sometimes ambiguous environment, providing clarity and simplicity on approach to drive things forward. This role also requires strong leadership to deliver change.

Principle accountabilities

• On behalf of the Finance Director, Financial Control - the role holder will be accountable for 4 of the 5 company's core processes: Service to Cash, Record to Report, Source to Pay and Project to Retire delivered through our Centre of Excellence . This will necessitate working closely with the Finance Service Delivery Manager at the Centre of Excellence and other members of the Financial Control leadership team to ensure ownership and responsibility for managing the financial risk (i.e. first line of defence) across these core processes is clearly defined and executed. Accountability for these core processes is a significant part of the role and will require strong leadership to drive successful outcomes.
• To provide a leadership role, along with the other members of the Financial Control Leadership team to deliver the Finance team purpose of enabling the business to deliver its value potential.
• Lead, coach and develop a team of finance professionals with accounting skills, to enable high quality output, provide strong communication across the team and provide a consistent focus on team development, ensuring we have the range and level of competence required for the future while providing professional best practice aligned with the businesses Values and Behaviours. Contribute to embed a team culture based on meritocracy, inclusivity, proactiveness and go-to attitude towards change.

• Responsible for the development and maintenance of the Group's financial accounting policies and the assessment and application of relevant accounting standards and other external reporting and governance requirements. Advise the business on the appropriate accounting treatments for a wide range of business scenarios and provide the independent stewardship of the businesses financial commitments, including the design and implementation of the strategy to ensure that sufficient distributable reserves are available to meet shareholder requirements for the payment of dividends.

• Lead on the preparation and submission of Audit Committee papers in support of the above and attend the Audit Committee on a quarterly basis (and Board) as appropriate.

• Lead on the assessment of changes to accounting standards, interpretation, implementation and communication of new requirements. Ensure the Group complies with UKGAAP, IFRS and other relevant Financial Reporting standards and requirements (e.g.; Company Act etc.).
• Ensure the integrity, quality and timeliness of the external reporting, statutory accounts, investor reports, quarterly results and reports to banks and investors. Ensure team supports bond issuances and due diligence activities. Manage the consolidation process ensuring the systems and processes are fit for purpose and supported by an appropriately qualified and trained team. Own the day-to-day transaction processing activities.
• Support the The Head of Finance, Treasury Control, Risk Management and Data Science in the continuous improvement of the financial processes and controls embedded with the core business processes. This includes the overall ownership of the Group's financial reporting, consolidation system (currently SAP BPC).

Qualifications and Experience

• Qualified accountant (ACA) with a minimum of 10 years' experience most recently in a senior Finance role involved in Management and Statutory Reporting, Group consolidation and technical accounting.
• Driven with significant energy. Strong influencer with the ability to structure and deliver persuasive arguments at a senior level.
• Reflective with the demonstrable ability to learn from and adapt to environment to deliver results.
• Strong leadership skills with a demonstrable track record of a leading high-performance team toward the successful attainment of challenging goals
• Technical accounting expertise with a high level of attention to detail and accuracy with experience in driving effective change, and proven delivery in complex, operational environments and high level of resilience