Lead Finance Business Partner - Retail Direct & Advice

Job Type: Permanent

Location: This role could be based in our Edinburgh, Birmingham or London office with time spent working in the office and at home. Flexible working: All of our roles are open to part-time, job-share and other types of flexibility. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process.

Closing Date: 16th January (23:55)

Salary and benefits: Up to £70,000 depending on experience plus an indicative bonus range 16% - 32%, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more.

Who are we? We want to be the best place that any of our 6,600 colleagues have ever worked. We’re Phoenix Group, we’re a long‑term savings and retirement business. We offer a range of products across our market‑leading brands, Standard Life, SunLife, Phoenix Life and ReAssure. Around 1 in 5 people in the UK has a pension with us. We’re a FTSE 100 organisation that is tackling key issues such as transitioning our portfolio to net zero by 2050, and we’re not done yet.

We have a Lead Finance Business Partner opportunity to join our Pensions & Savings and Operations - Commercial & Finance team, supporting our Retail Direct and Advice business. We’re looking for a dynamic finance professional to join our Pension & Savings division – one of the fastest‑growing areas within the Group. Reporting to the Head of Finance Business Partnering (for Retail Direct and Advice) you will play a crucial role in delivering meaningful financial support and insights across a range of financial metrics to support and enable effective business decisions.

You will work closely with a range of stakeholders across the business and across finance to ensure collaboration and successful partnership. If you're passionate about influencing investment decisions, leading value‑adding initiatives, and partnering with senior stakeholders to optimise outcomes and challenge targets and performance, this is your opportunity to make a meaningful impact.

The role will report to the Head of Finance Business Partnering (Retail Direct and Advice) and will be responsible for forward management, planning and reporting of trading performance for a number of areas within the fast growing Pension & Savings business, which is at the forefront of the growth ambitions for the Group.

The core responsibilities:

• Provide challenge in business performance plans and outcomes, with an aim to maximise commercial value in the aligned business area.
• Play a proactive role in the development of financial forecasting and planning, across a range of financial metrics, and ensure connection and consistency with the respective business areas activity and delivery.
• Explain the trading results to the business stakeholders in a meaningful way that can influence decisions and actions.
• Support the business unit in understanding the commercial drivers behind each of the businesses to execute value maximising activity.
• Identify options and opportunities for financial performance management through considered analysis of experience and ensuring presentation of these findings in an appropriate method.
• Take accountability to drive forward value to the aligned business area and champion a curiosity mindset, with a willingness to engage proactively in decisions.
• Deliver ad‑hoc commercial analysis, identifying key trends and bringing these to life for the business stakeholders.
• Make recommendations from the findings of the analysis.
• Support the creation of business cases that will improve strategic value and ensure that these are aligned to ongoing strategy, forecasting and planning for the business.
• Effectively communicate complex information to a wide group of stakeholders against a background of continuous regulatory and business change.
• Ensure that outputs are tailored appropriately to the audience.
• Be a self‑starter attitude looking for ways to optimise or improve the outputs from the team to ensure we work efficiently and drive forward best‑practice in making‑things‑happen.
• Be a trusted voice to the stakeholders across the business and finance.
• Take ownership for commercial assessments within broader activity and feed into broader investment decisions for the aligned business area, ensuring that all financial impacts are understood and considered as part of decision making.
• Ensure accountability is taken for changes driven elsewhere across the Group that affect the business area of the team.
• Represent the team across various internal and external working groups/management committees, sharing knowledge and opinions, proactively engaging, and influencing other stakeholders where appropriate to ensure reasonable requirements are met.

What are we looking for?

Essential:

• A strong understanding of pensions and savings products, along with awareness of the competitive landscape and wider markets.
• A naturally curious mindset with a willingness to engage in a wide range of initiatives and a natural desire for problem solving and optimisation.
• Analytical thinking skills, paired with the ability to clearly communicate complex information to diverse audiences and stakeholders.
• Ability to identify key priorities and seek guidance when needed, in an environment of constant change and tight deadlines.
• Proven experience in stakeholder management, including effective business partnering for an open trading business.
• Influencing at various levels: the role must provide challenge on financial performance and expense management, often navigating sensitive or contested decisions.
• Must have an accounting qualification.

Desirable:

• Experience in positively contributing to the fostering of a culture of accountability, professional growth, and collaboration.
• Evidence of ability to proactively look for and embrace more efficient ways of working, improving processes and identifying opportunities to strengthen controls — while maintaining high‑quality delivery.

We want to hire the whole version of you. We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you. If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best. We’re reviewing applications as they come in, so apply early to avoid missing out.

Hiring over the festive period: Many of our colleagues will be taking a well‑earned break over the festive period. We’re still advertising our open roles and as part of our commitment to providing the best candidate experience, we wanted to let you know that there may be a delay in responding to applications received between the 19th December and 5th January. Please bear with us and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can.