Senior Business Partner
6 Months
Cambridge
Hybrid
37.5 hours per week
Inside IR35

I am looking for a Senior Business Partner with experience operating successfully within a large business, a comprehensive knowledge of budgeting and forecasting processes, and an almost over-familiarity of managing and influencing senior stakeholders to join our client, an innovative international defence company.

Purpose of the position
• The role will be responsible for setting the gold standard for finance business partnering within the business unit.
• You will report directly to the Finance Director and will be working with senior stakeholders at a director level to support, challenge and influence decision making to ensure the business meets its strategic objectives.
• This will involve supporting forecasting, budgeting and business planning whilst also being responsible for the provision of real-time meaningful management information to support this decision-making process.
• You will be responsible for managing the financial position of key programmes, projects, and pillars within the Land Systems Business. You will be personally responsible for managing at least one strategic pillar, working closely with the Director who leads this pillar to ensure thorough reporting of all activity within this pillar, including programmes, projects, bids, overheads, R&D spend etc.

Responsibilities
• Deputising for the Finance Director on all business partnering aspects when they are out of the office
• Actively supporting the Finance Director in setting out the strategic direction of the finance business partnering team and engaging with the Board to agree strategic goals and timelines for meeting these
• Supporting the wider business partnering team by mentoring, coaching and setting best practise in everything the team sets out to achieve
• Working with the budget holders in the business area to create accurate, timely and well understood annual budgets and monthly IBP (“Integrated business planning”) reforecasts
• Briefing budget holders to ensure they can understand and articulate the operational opportunities, risks and sensitivities associated with the financial forecasts understand the levers of control they can exercise to manage these
• Effectively challenging and influencing senior stakeholders to ensure forecasts are materially accurate and there is a measurable uplift in performance in that business area
• Responsible for monthly reporting - independently conducting monthly review meetings with budget holders to ensure they understand any material variances against budget and are in a position to create and implement effective plans to manage any operational matters creating a deterioration in the financial result
• Analysing data and communicating this in verbal, written and visual ways to ensure it is thoroughly understood by the Board and non-financial stakeholders
• Supporting ad hoc projects that drive business change, e.g. activity based costing, investment or capital expenditure appraisals etc
• Reporting on monthly long term project results, including risk analysis, and working with the Programme Director and project managers to drive changes required in operation to ensure these projects remain on track

Tasks
• Design, prepare and continuously improve monthly reporting for the Board relating to relevant activity which is being undertaken. This should include relevant KPIs and p/l, b/s and cash information.
• Work with the financial reporting team to design, prepare and continuously improve cost centre reporting to ensure transparency of financial data.
• Build forecasts, budgets and business plans to support strategic direction of any project or pillar for which they are responsible
• Build capital investment models and supporting business cases for sign off of one-off projects which require Board approval

The Candidate
• Experience in performing budgeting and forecasting processes
• Excellent analytical skills
• Managing competing priorities and meeting deadlines with a high quality of work
• Solving complex problems autonomously
• Making difficult or unpopular decisions
• Managing and influencing senior stakeholders, including those from a non-financial background
• Puts energy and perseverance into driving change in a difficult environment
• ACCA, ACA, CIMA qualified
• At least five years post qualified experience
• Experience in a senior business partnering role, preferable in a large or complex environment