Finance Manager - Domain & HR

Selfridges is a successful luxury retailer and is continuing to develop on its Tech transformation journey, which includes continued investment in its digital offerings and investment in underlying applications, infrastructure and processes.

As such, we need a strong finance business partner to provide support and finance challenge in several ways:

To work closely with the Tech & Product teams to track and monitor spend on investment initiatives delivered through Domains.

Support the preparation and presentation of any future investment initiatives for Capex approval in the Tech, Product & Digital areas.

Take ownership for the business cycle of reporting, budgeting and forecasting of HR, Non Core Finance, Strategy & Pension:

Business partner and develop strong relationships with the finance and above teams to help monitor and understand spend against budget.

Deliver to the Five Year Plan, Budget and Forecast Process set by FP&A.

Analyse the variance between budgeted and actual costs in each area from both a monthly and year to date view. Provide challenge and guidance to stay on track.

To support the Senior Finance Manager with material central contracts, to support (and challenge where relevant) the Procurement department on deals, financials terms, and contractual discussions.

Work with the wider finance team and non-finance stakeholders to establish and support the ongoing tracking of benefits delivered by Domain supported initiatives.

Scope

Strong communication and stakeholder management skills are needed in this role, along with P&L and balance sheet management, an acumen for contracts understanding and interrogation (particularly IT / Software contracts), Project accounting and an appreciation of how IT projects work.

A bit about the role

As the Finance Business Partner to Tech Exec and Leadership Team and HR, the below responsibilities will be key:

Deliver to the 5YP, Budget and Forecast Process set by FP&A for the function.

Business partnering, month end management accounting processes, and monthly P&L review with the domain leadership teams.

Proactively work with domain leaders to review squad resource profile and re-forecast on a regular basis to identify any risks or issues from a budget point of view and advise appropriate remedial actions where appropriate.

Liaise with external suppliers to track and monitor costs and provide challenge and support to Tech stakeholders during commercial negotiations.

Establish a baseline for benefits tracking and reporting, and work with the relevant business partner from either the digital or stores teams to provide regular reporting against targets for these.

Complete Month End Process proactively and efficiently

Have a solid understanding of the budgeted costs by area, and challenge for delivery when appearing off track. Help deliver a rolling forecast with proactive call out of risks and opportunities.

Oversight of the further projects in flight and in pipeline as part of the IT roadmap; this includes creation of the business cases for investment, monitoring of spend during the project lifecycle, and then close down of the assets with financial accounts.

Leading and managing a team

To coach and develop the Finance Analyst who supports this role

To set and review the objectives of the team member, offering feedback on performance and agreeing actions and objectives

To role model excellent customer service and high professional standards.

To plan own work effectively, to communicate clearly with others and provide guidance, ensuring the right information is delivered to the right people right first time.

A bit about you

Have a recognised accountancy qualification, ideally ACCA or CIMA

Experience of organising, managing and developing a team

Ability to work to a high standard of accuracy with excellent attention to detail

Highly organized and efficient, with an ability to work under pressure

Ideally exposure to IT capital projects, both waterfall and agile delivery methods and an appreciation of the impact of SAAS on accounting

Excellent communication/ interpersonal and influencing skills

PC skills - excellent Powerpoint and Excel skills sought

Receptive to change with a desire to continuously improve processes and outputs

Proactive

Wider Relationships

Exec: Tech and their leadership team, HR and their leadership team

Head of FP&A

Financial Control team in Leicester

Technology Director

Delivery Managers (where applicable)