Finance Manager - Clothing & Home - Governance, Risk & Control

M&S is an iconic British retailer focused primarily on own label businesses within Food and Clothing & Home (C&H), as well as M&S Bank. We operate as a family of businesses, selling high-quality, great-value products in the UK and in 71 international markets. Together our 64,000 colleagues across our stores, support centres, warehouses and supply chain serve around 32 million customers each year. Our vision is to be the most trusted retailer, doing the right thing for our customers, with quality products at the heart of everything we do.

Our C&H business is in an exciting period of growth, with significant transformation programmes underway to reset the function and set it up to deliver long-term, sustainable, profitable growth for our investors, colleagues, and wider communities. C&H delivers c.48% of M&S group operating profit, selling product across Womenswear, Menswear, Lingerie, Kidswear, Home and Beauty, in stores and through the M&S.com website and app. While primarily an own-brand business, we have a growing external brands department selling some of the nation's favourite clothing, home and beauty brands - delivered through a mix of brand acquisitions (e.g. Jaeger) and brand partnerships (e.g. Early Learning Centre).

To stay close to customers, our support teams are in the office three days a week as we believe that skills are developed through collaboration, and that spending time together makes us more creative and connected.

What's in it for you

Being a part of M&S is exactly that - playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We're an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

• After completing your probationary period, you’ll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
• Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
• Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
• A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
• A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
• Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
• Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
• Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
• A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you're passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.

What you'll do

Your key accountabilities will include:

• Facilitating risk management across all areas of C&H to identify and assess key risks and controls, and drive forward mitigation plans, working with risk leads across all functions including logistics, sourcing, finance and commercial teams. This will include bi-annual updates to the Group Risk team, to support disclosures within M&S' external reporting.
• Providing risk, process and controls expertise at the business unit level, including: controls support for new business processes, projects and integration of acquisitions; leading process reviews/projects that challenge existing ways of working and drive business unit level control improvements; increasing awareness and knowledge of risk management and controls throughout C&H, driving an improved controls culture across the function.
• Liaising closely with Internal and External audit and the relevant C&H teams to help support effective and efficient planning and scoping of audits, and timely closure of audit actions.
• Tracking of open Risk, Internal Audit and Finance Change & Control actions in a timely manner and providing reporting of this to C&H leadership.
• Chairing quarterly risk & control updates at C&H Leadership Team meetings, and monthly risk & control meetings with the C&H Finance Director.
• Reporting into the Audit & Risk Committee annually on the C&H risk and control environment.
• Providing ad hoc support for central projects delivered by the Group Change & Control team e.g. enhancing controls around non-financial ESG disclosures.

Who you are

Your skills and experience will include:

• Qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent).
• Strong experience in an audit/risk/compliance/strategy function of a large international company or Big 4 in the areas of governance, risk management and internal audit.
• Proven record of successfully leading the design and implementation of risk management frameworks and/or internal controls; excellent knowledge and understanding of best-practice frameworks for risk and controls.
• Influencing and leadership skills: proven experience of building, developing and sustaining relationships with key stakeholders at all levels.
• Experience within Clothing, Home or Beauty retail would be highly desirable but not essential.

Everyone's welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We're disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We're transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don't hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.