Senior Commercial Finance Analyst - 9 month FTC in Bury

Established in 1981 with a single store in the Northwest of England, the JD Group is a leading omni-channel retailer of Sports Fashion, Outdoors and Gyms with our colleagues working in stores across several retail fascias in many markets around the world.

JD Sports Fashion Plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1996 and has been a FTSE100 publicly quoted company since 2019 and continues to grow in the UK and internationally. We want to be the leading global omnichannel retailer in the sports and outdoor industry. To be a part of this successful company and help us to achieve this you will have the desire to ingrain our strategic goals of being a people-led, innovative and customer-focused organisation which provides operational excellence whilst identifying new areas of growth as part of our day to day objectives.

As the Senior Commercial Finance Analyst, you will work closely with the Property FBP, being their direct support for all things financial. You will develop key relationships within the team to support and challenge in key areas around Store investments, financial reporting, budgeting, forecasting, project governance and other ad hoc requests where required.

• Preparation & review of store investment business cases including Income Statement performance and return on investment measures to be presented in monthly property board meetings & European Stage 1 meetings.
• Post opening assessment & reporting of performance, & variance analysis.
• Provide store performance data & analytics to assist in strategic property decision making.
• Financial support to Head of Property Commercial Finance assisting in providing clear, concise insight and understanding of the Property cost base such as staff costs and other overheads.
• Chairing regularly meetings with the Reporting team to understand month end reporting to review spend and gain better understanding of expected costs, highlighting underlying issues as they arise and providing challenge where necessary.
• Supporting with the annual budgeting process and quarterly Forecasting for the Property cost centre.
• Supporting with the preparation of Quarterly Business Reviews and Annual Budget decks.
• Providing clear and concise reporting to the Property FBP and Exec Sponsor.
• Improving efficiency and effectiveness of financial modelling.
• Ad hoc Finance tasks and project work as required.

• CIMA / ACCA / ACA Part-Qualified Accountant.
• Experience of business partnering advantageous, including providing evidence of challenge and making suggestions that added value.
• Understanding of the key commercial drivers of store performance.
• Experience of Retail and Property advantageous.
• Evidence of providing data driven insights.
• Strong communication skills both written and verbal required.
• Able to communicate effectively with non-financial colleagues, and across all business functions.
• Strong analytical skills required to investigate, understand, and explain performance.
• Ability to form strong working relationships at all levels.
• Ability to work under own initiative.
• Strong time management skills and ability to prioritise workloads to meet deadlines.
• Advanced Excel skills essential. Oracle, TM1 & Power BI experience not essential but an advantage.
• Excellent attention to detail & accuracy.
• Ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines.
• Positive, flexible, enthusiastic, and driven.

We know our colleagues work tirelessly to make JD Sports the success it is today and in turn, we offer them some amazing benefits including staff Discount On JD Group and other brands within the organisation and personal development opportunities to learn and develop at work.