Senior Commercial Accounting Manager

Collaborative work across various finance teams

Advanced Excel and Power BI skills required

Partners make commercial decisions every week, who to hire, what to charge and where to invest. This role exists to make those decisions better. You will be the finance lead for a selection of practice groups, giving leaders a clear view of commercial performance and a firm recommendation on what to do next. You will work closely with the commercial accounts team, the pricing team, the fee-earning community and senior leadership across the firm.

Bird & Bird's Finance team's mission is to provide world class finance support to the business. In London the team comprises of over 70 finance professionals across a wide range of areas including management and financial accounting, transaction processing, partner accounting, tax, treasury, pricing and commercial decision support. Our 34 international offices have their own professionals providing local expertise and support. Collaborative across the network, the team are focussed on driving efficiency, adding value and profitable growth.

Key Responsibilities

• Commercial performance: Review performance against budgets and forecasts, identify the drivers of profitability, utilisation, working capital and cost control, and present clear recommendations to senior management.
• Business partnering and stakeholder engagement: Build strong relationships with Practice Group Heads, partners and senior leaders, acting as a trusted adviser and providing commercial insight to support informed decision-making and the profitable delivery of the five-year strategy.
• Budgeting, forecasting and scenario planning: Work with business units to develop robust budgets and forecasts, model revenue trends and resource capacity, and identify financial risks, opportunities and actions.
• Pricing strategy and governance: Collaborate with the Pricing team to provide strategic input into pricing decisions, balancing competitiveness and client expectations with profitability and the firm's longer-term profit ambitions.
• Lateral partner investment appraisal: Develop robust financial models for potential lateral partner hires, including revenue projections, cost implications, profitability and P&L impact, and assess strategic alignment to support informed recruitment decisions.
• Marketing and Business Development support: Advise Marketing and Business Development teams by reviewing data requests, providing relevant reporting and analysis, and applying findings to practice and business development strategy.
• Reporting and systems: Collaborate with the Business Intelligence and Financial Systems teams to enhance reporting capability, including Power BI, standardised reporting templates and consistent financial models.
• Leadership and collaboration: Support and develop junior finance team members, collaborate across Commercial Accounting, FP&A, Accounting, Pricing and other finance teams, and promote a proactive, high-performing business-partnering culture.
• Process improvement: Drive continuous improvement across finance processes, including reporting, modelling, budgeting, forecasting, write-offs and discounts, identifying opportunities to standardise, simplify and improve efficiency.
• CFO and strategic initiatives: Support the CFO and senior finance leadership in delivering the strategic vision for the commercial management of the firm and in progressing wider finance initiatives.
• AI, Data & Innovation Leadership: Use artificial intelligence tools, automation and advanced analytics to improve decision-making, insight and efficiency across the firm.

What you'll bring

The successful candidate will possess the following qualities:

• Advanced Excel and Power BI skills, with strong analytical ability, accuracy and attention to detail.
• Effective time management, and pride in delivering excellence while managing stakeholder expectations. A record of changing senior stakeholders' decisions using financial evidence.
• Structured problem solving, and the ability to explain complex financial information clearly to financial and non-financial colleagues at all levels.
• Teamwork: Collaborative work with the wider commercial accounts team across the finance department and business services, requiring good people skills.
• Pricing experience: Some pricing experience in a business partnering context will be very advantageous.

Other desirable skills and experience:

• Ideally the candidate will be qualified or studying towards a formal finance qualification and/or have experience of working within a law firm or professional services environment.

What's in it for you

We provide comprehensive support for our colleagues' health and wellbeing, including private medical cover, life assurance, critical illness cover, and regular health assessments. In addition, we offer a range of lifestyle benefits designed to help our team live their best lives, such as a cycle to work scheme, access to online GP appointments, discounted gym memberships, and an electric vehicle scheme.

Bird & Bird opens up a world of possible for lawyers and professionals everywhere. Working for a leading international law firm like Bird & Bird means working alongside people who are truly collegiate in the way they work with everyone. We work as one global team, with over 70% of work involving people from across the firm. And that's only increasing! It's this common purpose and shared approach that makes for a more productive and collaborative place to work. Your firm. Your future.

As a disability and neurodiversity inclusive employer we want to ensure that you have a barrier-free recruitment experience at Bird & Bird. If you require any adjustments during the recruitment process, please provide details to your recruitment contact who will be in touch to discuss any details provided and understand more about your individual adjustment needs.

If this job opportunity is not suitable, then check out the other LGBT friendly jobs across UK!

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