Director/ Senior Head of Commercial Finance in Lichfield

We are looking for a highly capable and commercially driven finance leader to act as a key partner to our Chief Financial, Technology and Property Officer and wider Executive team, playing a central role in driving financial performance, pace and strategic delivery across the organisation. This is a high-impact position suited to an experienced professional who combines strong commercial judgement with the ability to operate both strategically and hands-on, delivering meaningful change across the finance function and wider business.

In this role, you’ll evolve and integrate our commercial finance and FP&A capability across our trading areas to create a unified, high-performing function, creating value and delivering financial performance. You’ll provide clear, actionable financial insight, robust forecasting and constructive challenge across the P&L, working capital cycle and net debt, ensuring the organisation delivers sustainable growth, member value and commercial returns.

Working closely with senior stakeholders, you’ll translate strategic priorities into measurable financial targets, KPIs and value drivers, while proactively identifying risks and opportunities through forward-looking analysis and scenario modelling. As a strategic partner to our senior leadership team, you’ll embed strong financial discipline while supporting innovation and investment decisions.

You’ll play a key role in planning and performance cycles, leading budgeting, forecasting and long-range planning processes, driving accuracy and ensuring a “no surprises” approach. You’ll also oversee robust business case development and post-investment reviews, ensuring expected benefits are realised and value is delivered across the organisation.

Leadership is at the heart of this role. You’ll build and develop a high-performing finance team, strengthening capability across business partnering, commercial acumen, data analytics and emerging AI tools. You’ll embed best-in-class systems, processes and governance, while fostering a culture of accountability, continuous improvement and high performance. Beyond the function, you’ll raise the bar on commercial thinking and influence, acting as a trusted advisor across the Senior Leadership team and wider Society.

You’ll contribute to long-term strategic initiatives, including sustainability investment and value creation for members and customers, ensuring financial decisions align with our purpose-led ambitions. This is a pivotal leadership role with significant visibility and influence, offering the opportunity to shape the future of the organisation while developing towards potential succession to CFO in the medium term.

This is a hybrid role, offering a blend of home working alongside time spent at our Support Centres in Lichfield and Warwick.

We are looking for an experienced finance professional with a strong track record in FP&A, ideally gained within fast-paced, commercially driven environments. You don’t just report on the numbers—you influence them, bringing a deep understanding of how a best-in-class finance function drives business success. Essentially, you’ll have previous experience in business transformation, cost optimisation and data or system improvement initiatives. You consistently turn insight into impact, using robust analysis, forecasting and reporting to influence decisions and unlock P&L value.

With a strong understanding of the retail landscape, you’ll recognise the key drivers that matter- from pricing and margin to footfall, leakage and marketing effectiveness. You’re equally comfortable diving into the detail as you are stepping back to communicate the bigger strategic picture. To be successful in this role you’ll need to excel at translating complex data into clear, actionable insights that resonate with senior stakeholders. You’ll be confident building credibility quickly, partnering effectively with Executive and Senior Leadership Teams, and influencing with confidence and gravitas.

You lead with integrity and bring a positive, can-do mindset. Ambitious and emotionally intelligent, you know how to navigate and contribute to a values-led organisation while helping it achieve strong commercial outcomes. Above all, you’ll bring energy. You inspire those around you, build strong relationships, and motivate teams to achieve more.

Everyone is welcome here. We’re happy to make reasonable adjustments so that all our candidates can show us how they’ll perform their role. There is a section in the application form where you can provide any additional information. Please use this section to include any reasonable adjustments you need, and we’ll do our best to support you through our recruitment process.

In addition to our competitive salaries, our colleagues also benefit from:

• Fantastic colleague discount - Reward ££’s and discounts across our Retail and Funeral businesses.
• Retail discounts - our hub offers colleagues access to hundreds of exclusive retail discounts, savings on days out and holiday discounts.
• Colleague Dividend - We pay a share of our profits to eligible colleagues as a thank you for their contribution to our success.
• Colleague recognition - we celebrate our colleague’s achievements both personally and professionally.
• Personalised learning and development - with easy access to a wide range of training programmes.
• Paid time for volunteering - we encourage our colleagues to spend three days per year taking part in volunteering, fully paid for by us.
• Enhanced family friendly policies - to help you feel fully supported during any significant life events.

Wellbeing

• Annual health check kit and virtual GP – Finger prick blood test kit, that is sent to Square Healthcare for your personal healthcare report, and access to a virtual GP 7 days a week 8am to 8pm for you and your family.
• Colleague assistance programme – to support you and your family when you need it the most.
• Healthcare Cashplan - your wellbeing is important, so you’ve got the opportunity to contribute into a voluntary plan that helps pay towards a range of healthcare expenses.
• Company sick pay – We offer company sick pay to colleagues so that you can focus on getting better and returning to work in full health.
• Life Assurance - after an initial qualifying period, you’ll get free life assurance cover, that pays your nominated beneficiary if you die while you’re working for us.
• We’ve got you – our colleague wellbeing campaign, making wellbeing benefits and resources accessible and relevant to the role that you do.
• Give as you earn - helping you support charities which mean something to you.

Financial Wellbeing

• iTrent Financial Wellbeing (Wagestream) - offers something for all our colleagues, whether you want to track your finances, save some money, or access up to 50% of your earned pay flexibly in a way that suits you.
• The Money Co-op - Free access to support all aspects of your financial wellbeing, such as savings and loans at competitive rates.
• Salary Sacrifice schemes:
• Electric Vehicle scheme – Option to purchase your EV through salary sacrifice.
• Share Incentive Plan (SIP) – option to buy shares within the Society, where they will attract interest and £10 worth of matching shares.
• Cycle to Work scheme – Option to purchase your bicycle and accessories through salary sacrifice.
• Holiday buy - colleagues can buy up to a week extra of annual leave each year.
• Company Pension - you can access a company pension scheme with us as well as access to Pension wellbeing information.
• Nous – smart assistant that can save you money and time on managing your household bills.

To find out more about all of these plus many more reasons to join us, please visit Rewards and benefits - Central Coop (careers.coop).

OurCoop is the UK’s largest independent co-operative Society, with more than one million Members and 13,000 colleagues operating in communities nationwide. It was formed by bringing together Central Co-op, The Midcounties Co-operative and Chelmsford Star Co-op to create a stronger, member-owned organisation rooted in shared co-operative values. The Society trades nationally through its family of businesses while remaining deeply rooted in local communities. Its footprint spans Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Bedfordshire in the South and West; the Midlands including Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Northamptonshire; the North including Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Yorkshire; and the East of England, including Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. OurCoop and its family of businesses are trading names of Central England Co-operative Limited.