The posting
This is a senior commercial finance role turning business priorities into clear plans, better decisions and measurable financial outcomes. As the lead Finance partner to an executive leader and their leadership team, you will act as a trusted adviser and constructive challenger. You will translate strategy and operational activity into robust plans, forecasts and investment choices, then ensure agreed actions deliver improvements in profitability, cash, capital efficiency, productivity and control. You will own the quality of Finance Business Partnering across your remit, coordinating specialist support from Accounting, Controlling and FP&A rather than performing routine transaction processing.
What you'll be doing...
- Lead planning and forecasting: deliver the annual budget, latest estimates and multi-period plans, using operational drivers and clearly documented assumptions, risks and opportunities.
- Provide decision-ready insight: turn financial and operational data into concise options and recommendations for senior leaders, with clear trade-offs, owners and actions.
- Drive performance: lead regular performance reviews focused on root cause, forward impact and corrective action—not simply reporting variances.
- Own financial stewardship: oversee the P&L, balance sheet, cash, working capital and capital expenditure for your remit; challenge accounting outcomes and ensure material issues are resolved.
- Shape investment choices: assess business cases using whole-life cost, cash, return, risk and strategic value; track approved benefits and recommend when to fix, rescope, pause, stop or scale activity.
- Improve value and productivity: identify practical opportunities to reduce cost, strengthen cash, simplify processes and improve resource allocation, then follow through to measurable delivery.
- Strengthen data and controls: improve reporting, models, data quality and controls through standardisation, automation and responsible use of technology.
- Lead through influence: build trusted relationships while maintaining Finance independence, coordinating effectively across Finance and the wider business.
- Develop capability: where applicable, manage and coach Finance Analysts, setting clear priorities and assuring the quality and usefulness of their work.
What success looks like
- Leaders receive timely, forward-looking insight and clear recommendations that improve decisions.
- Budgets and forecasts are driver-based, credible and owned by the business, with risks and actions visible.
- Financial results are accurate, explainable and connected across profit, cash, working capital and capital expenditure.
- Investments and improvement activity have clear outcomes, owners, measures and follow-through.
- Processes, models and controls become simpler, more consistent and more reusable over time.
Additional focus: The successful candidate will partner with Technical Operations
- Build clear cost-driver insight across labour, contractors, fleet, facilities, energy, maintenance, print production, stock and other material operational costs.
- Partner with operational leaders on capacity, suppliers, service levels and resource choices, identifying what should stop, be deferred, redesigned, automated or accelerated.
- Lead Finance support for capital planning, project forecasting and post-investment review, maintaining a dependable view of commitments, phasing and forecast-to-complete.
- Improve stock, fleet, print production, working-capital and cost-allocation decisions through robust data, transparent assumptions and practical recommendations.
- Provide reliable Technical Operations cost evidence for contract profitability, tenders, renewals and portfolio decisions.
A little bit about you...
Required
- Substantial experience in Finance Business Partnering, FP&A, commercial finance or operational finance, independently supporting a complex senior-leader remit.
- Strong understanding of P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, working capital, capital expenditure, accruals, provisions and management reporting.
- A record of leading budgets, forecasts, analytical projects and improvement activity through to practical action and measurable outcomes.
- Excellent analytical and financial-modelling capability, with strong Excel skills and experience of ERP, planning or business-intelligence tools. Experience of using AI tools to support effectiveness.
- The judgement and confidence to influence and constructively challenge senior stakeholders, communicating complex issues simply.
- Strong prioritisation, project leadership and attention to detail, including timely escalation when delivery, assumptions or controls are at risk.
- Experience developing others, or clear readiness to coach, delegate and assure the quality of an analyst’s work.
Preferred
- A professional accounting qualification such as ACCA, CIMA or ACA, or strong equivalent relevant experience.
- Practical experience with SAP and Power BI.
- Experience leading cross-functional transformation, governance or benefits-realisation activity beyond a single Finance cycle.
- For the current Technical Operations requirement: experience in an asset-intensive, engineering, infrastructure, logistics, facilities, field-operations, media or similarly complex environment; familiarity with capital investment, stock, fleet, operational productivity or cost allocation would be valuable.
A little bit more about us...
- We believe in building a diverse and inclusive culture and positive employee experience.
- We are One Team, more than just ourselves.
- We are customer first, we understand, and help solve our customers’ problems.
- We Test & Learn, we are empowered to learn and grow, unafraid of change.
- We choose to care, we are committed to doing the right thing, the right way.
It’s really important to us that we give as much to our colleagues as they give to us.
Our latest Belonging Survey showed that our colleagues feel valued and listened to as we continue to build an environment where everyone can thrive, grow, belong and be their authentic selves.
We believe that diversity of thought, experience and background provides the platform for great creativity,
We are committed to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, colour, ancestry, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability or gender identity.
Many of our Colleagues work flexibly in many different ways. Please talk to us at interview about the flexibility you need. We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want, but we do promise not to judge you for asking.
About our recruitment process….
1. You find or get sent this job advert, read it, and feel like you’re you’d be a great addition to the JCD family.
2. You send in your application to let us know you’re interested.
3. We see your application, get excited, and give you a call.
4. You’ll meet us twice, depending on the role prepare a presentation and we’ll get to know each other.
5. You’ll begin your journey with us, we're excited to support and develop you throughout your career.
