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Head of Commercial Finance

  • Location: London
  • Salary: £140000 - £160000 per annum per year
  • Job Type:Permanent

Posted 19 days ago

  • Sector: Accountancy & Finance
  • Contact: Alex Pughe
  • Contact Email: alexp@cedarrecruitment.com
  • Start Date: 04/09/2023
  • Expiry Date: 04 October 2023
  • Job Ref: JO0000013309_1693826726

Cedar is currently partnered with a leading international technology/SaaS business based in London to hire an experienced Commercial Head of Finance to oversee and drive the financial performance of the organisation. The role is Hybrid with two days in the office.

You will be a qualified financial leader/accountant, with strong analytical skills and an innate commercial understanding. You also have demonstrable experience of acting as a business partner, supporting and challenging non-finance stakeholders. As this role involves constant interaction with senior non-finance stakeholders across the business, you need the confidence and emotional intelligence to effectively communicate at all levels. The ideal candidate has worked in the high-tech industry and enjoys operating in an extremely fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment.

Main Responsibilities Include

  • Strategic planning and franchise growth: Be a key member of the UK leadership teams, exhibiting sound commercial judgment while developing and driving our 1- and 3-year strategic plans, proactively highlighting risk and opportunities related to business growth and driving optimal investment decisions through data-driven insights and business analysis expertise
  • Operational excellence: Lead the forecasting process and drive operational rigor - identifying opportunities using both sound commercial acumen and a data-backed approach in order to achieve our strategic and financial plans. Provide business stakeholders with entrepreneurial guidance essential for appropriately interpreting results and acting on them - holding the business accountable for delivering continued improvement in results
  • Business partnering: This role will be the finance business partner to the VP/Country Manager for the UK market. It is expected that the incumbent will challenge the status quo and guide the leadership team to drive business growth. The role will also partner closely with other functions such as Marketing, Sales, Analytics, Product Management and Customer Success.
  • Team leadership and coaching: This role will directly manage a team of finance professionals and requires the leader to proactively influence, lead, develop and coach both within the team and across the broader finance team and UK market
  • Financial reporting: Ensure financial and management reporting deliverables (month-end, forecasts, variance commentary, business reviews and internal market management reporting) are prepared accurately and on time with a solid understanding of the business drivers behind variances to enable transparency into performance. Liaise with the Accounting team and cross-functional business partners to ensure correct accounting treatment of transactional activities.
  • Process improvement: Drive efficiencies and continuous improvement by streamlining, standardizing and automating processes and reporting requirements.
  • Modeling: Comfortable working with large financial models to analyse complex business scenarios that drive and inform our go-to-market strategy e.g. promotion, pricing, partnerships, new sales channel opportunities, product portfolio.

Experienced required.

  • Highly motivated, self-starter with the ability to work independently and in partnership in a fast paced environment, simultaneously manage several priorities, and challenge the status quo to lead change and operational improvements
  • Attention to detail and ability to synthesize large volumes of data into insightful recommendations to exec leadership team
  • Ability to influence all levels of leadership to drive actions, behaviors, decisions and business outcomes
  • Ability to lead, mentor and develop teams to deliver exceptional results and drive business growth
  • Strong ability to prioritise and drive the finance and business teams to focus on driving sustainable, profitable trajectory changing business growth
  • Exceptional track record of self-motivation, prioritization, initiative, and integrity. Comfortable operating with ambiguity
  • Strong written and oral communication skills with experience in presenting to business partners with confidence, conviction, and credibility
  • Excellent problem-solving skills including broad lateral thinking and sound commercial acumen
  • 8-10 years in FP&A or related roles and experience with SaaS/Cloud Computing. Prior experience leading a finance team preferred
  • Oracle Hyperion EssBase/Smartview experience preferred, along with the ability to model and analyse complex business scenarios.