UKI Commercial Controlling Manager

In this position, you will act as Commercial Controlling manager for the Professional Solutions Division of the UKI EssilorLuxottica Group, serving as the main finance contact for the Commercial Team and Senior Stakeholders. The overall purpose of the role is to provide proactive, strategic financial support to drive commercial decision‑making, ensure robust weekly and monthly reporting of net revenues, and lead the development of credible, insight‑driven revenue forecasting. This is a key role requiring strong business acumen, analytical capability, and the ability to influence senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Act as a trusted advisor and critical partner to the Commercial Directors and Sales Team, providing financial insight, challenge, and decision support.
• Support contract negotiations and tenders with financial modelling and ROI analysis.
• Collaborate with Sales, Marketing, Category, and BI teams to clearly understand and drive business performance and deliver positive commercial outcomes.
• Lead the periodic forecasting process for sales volumes, revenue, and commercial conditions/gross margin.
• Manage weekly and monthly rolling net sales forecasts, including system inputs.
• Provide inputs to the Credit team for cash forecasting and support sales bonus calculations.
• Oversee month‑end Net Sales and Gross Margin close tasks to ensure accuracy and completeness.
• Responsible for commercial condition accruals and customer bonus (YEB) provisions.
• Ensure compliance with Group Accounting & Reporting standards, audit and revenue recognition requirements.
• Deliver accurate, timely reporting on sales and margin performance by channel, customer, and product.
• Conduct ASP analysis, volume/price/mix variances, and margin bridge reporting.
• Prepare weekly sales actuals with commentary and lead discussions in review meetings.
• Manage BI tools and dashboards; track samples, returns, and support CMD knowledge.
• Interrogate commercial data to provide novel and value‑adding business insights.
• Support the Internal Business Case approval process (LOA/POA) for commercial agreements, including partnering with the commercial teams to evaluate the proposed conditions, providing guidance and feedback, business case preparation, modelling of the customer P&L, and presentation to senior stakeholders.
• Evaluate pricing proposals and their impact on sales, revenue, and margin.
• Review and harmonise commercial condition structures across customers and business units.
• Constantly explore ways to simplify, automate and improve Finance‑related business processes to drive simplicity and efficiency.
• Promote a process efficiency mindset with the team and nurture a culture of continuous improvement.
• Lead the UK Commercial Finance team in a way that nurtures and rewards talent whilst building team cohesion and a winning‑together approach.
• Adopt a result‑driven mindset and role model positive leadership behaviours across the team.
• Act as a key support across the wider UK Finance team and actively look for ways to support the UK Finance Manager as an opportunity to develop and grow.

Requirements

• Proven track record of business partnering with commercial teams and influencing non‑finance stakeholders.
• Strong analytical mindset with the ability to distil complex data into clear, actionable insights.
• Experience with revenue forecasting, reporting, and financial planning processes.
• Understanding of pricing strategy, margin optimisation, or contract negotiation.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including comfort presenting to senior management.
• Proactive, self‑starting mindset with the confidence to challenge and engage senior stakeholders.
• Excellent organisational skills; able to manage multiple priorities to meet tight deadlines.
• Collaborative and team‑oriented, with the ability to build cross‑functional relationships.
• Adaptable and resilient in a fast‑paced, evolving environment.