Head of Commercial Finance

The Head of Commercial Finance will operate as a key business partner to the commercial arm of this business, leading a finance team that not only delivers a first-class reporting service but also adds huge value commercially through a sophisticated balance of challenge, support and advice.

An end to end role, this role is an ideal platform for a talented and ambitious leader who sees their longer term future as a FTSE100 CFO.

A high profile, newly created opportunity, this role requires an inspirational leader with exceptional technical skills but with a bias towards business partnering and commercial decision-making.

With accountability for a large team of highly experienced finance professionals, the successful candidate will need to have extensive experience of managing, leading, coaching and developing senior finance leaders – ensuring the function continues to develop and transform, whilst also providing career development for the team as well as the individual themselves.

Key tasks

• Act as lead business partner to the Commercial leadership team, making a clear contribution to growth of the business through improved decision-making and increased gross margins
• Oversee and develop a team that is capable of providing exceptional financial disciplines, from reporting, through FP&A and onto strategy and longer term business planning
• Introduce a culture of challenge and support, at all levels of the team, encouraging a true business-partnering mindset, providing clear insight into business performance and highlighting opportunities for improvements across all KPIs – with a particular focus on cost control and margin improvement
• Support the business to improve, continuously, by providing value-added data, reports and insight
• Oversee cost and budget controls, holding the commercial leadership team to account

Candidate profile

This is an ideal role for a robust and commercial, finance leader, seeking an opportunity for accelerated career progression.

With presence, gravitas, charisma and genuine commercial flair, you will be attracted to the scale and scope of this role, and will see this as a clear pathway to a FTSE100 CFO role in the longer term.

Likely background and skill set

• First class academic profile
• ACA qualified (possibly CIMA)
• Highly commercial, with proven business partnering skills
• Used to pace, scale and complexity (multi Billion pound P&L)
• Proven at large scale team leadership, capable of developing senior leaders who are already direct reports
• Board-level credibility and presence, strong influencing skills
• Robust, driven and career-focused
• Previous experience gained within a FTSE100, or equivalent scale
• Interest in, or exposure to, consumer-facing businesses (FMCG or retail preferred)