Finance Business Partner - Business Services - 12-month FTC in Newcastle upon Tyne

The role provides the opportunity to support the evolution of finance business partnering in Norton Rose Fulbright through commercially driven finance support to Business Services functions. The role will support Business Services leadership: providing financial guidance, analysis, and advice to support Marketing & Business Development (MBD), General Counsel & Risk, Finance and Transformation. Key responsibilities include collaborating with budget holders on planning, analysing financial performance, monthly reporting and translating financial data into actionable insights to help drive decision‐making, efficiency, and ultimately profitability. The role requires strong financial acumen, excellent communication skills, and the ability to act as a trusted advisor. Reporting to Senior Finance Business Partner – Business Services the role sits in a small team of four (Senior Finance Business Partner, Finance Business Partner – IT, and Finance Analyst), within the large Newcastle Finance function. The role key responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Responsibilities

• Collaboration with leadership to understand their goals, challenges, and opportunities. To be a trusted advisor a key requirement is to build strong relationships with key stakeholders and effectively communicate financial information and insights to non‑financial stakeholders.
• Developing and improving monthly management reporting for the monitoring of performance against budget, including formal monthly reviews with the applicable budget holders. Key reporting objectives include timely information, as well as more insightful analysis and commentary.
• Working with the budget holders to drive accountability for delivering budgets, managing costs to ensure value for money and to identify any remedial actions to support budget and forecast delivery.
• Supporting the applicable budget holders in the development of business cases and other finance information that improve service delivery and/or cost efficiencies. In doing so provide the finance “sign off” on financials presented as part of the business case.
• Providing ad hoc support and analysis to the budget holders (who are senior leadership) and senior finance team members as part of informal forecasting during the year.
• Establishing and maintaining robust financial procedures that support financial control objectives. Help drive commercial performance, identifying opportunities for cost efficiencies for the functions supported.
• Driving commercial performance, identifying opportunities for cost efficiencies for the functions supported.
• Support the formal annual budget process for Business Services (the budget year is to 31 December with budgeting between September – November of the current year). In doing so the role will be responsible for:
• Coordinating a forecast for the current year which forms the baseline against which the budget will be assessed.
• Coordinating inputs and budget assumptions from UK and EMEA teams in line with the budget timetable and instructions.
• Providing challenge and rigour in the development of annual budgets.
• Management of the budget in the financial planning and reporting system.
• Preparing budget presentation templates and budget presentations, as well as supporting budget holders presenting budgets, finance leadership. The role will work closely with the finance leadership team members to support the success of the role.
• Budget holders. These are members of the Business Services Leadership Team, including functional leadership, accountable for managing their budgets.
• People & Culture (HR) business partner. Working collaboratively with people & culture business partners to support workforce planning for the functions.
• Regional chief operating officers and senior finance people in non‑UK offices. These are the individuals responsible for planning and costs for their respective offices.
• Financial controller and the Newcastle accounting team. The financial controller and team are responsible for UK accounting as well as a coordination role across EMEA. Accordingly, the role will work closely with the financial controller and the accounting team to deliver the reporting objectives, especially the financial “hygiene”, associated with the role. In addition the role will support the financial controller and the accounting team to help them understand what is going on in the business to improve the accuracy of accounting.

Candidate Profile

• Enjoy working independently, taking full ownership of deliverables by “mucking in” when needed.
• Be self‑motivated and self‑disciplined, passionate about meeting deadlines and providing commercial insight.
• Have excellent communication and influencing skills.
• Be a good problem solver, methodical in approach and an “eye for detail.”

Experience

• Previously held a finance business partnering role in a large international organisation (essential), must know what good finance business partnering looks like (essential).
• Proven track record of managing to deadlines and delivering commercially driven financial insights (essential).
• Working with Tagetik or other leading enterprise performance management (EPM) systems, and extracting value from EPM systems (beneficial).
• Working within a large legal or other professional services organisation.

We’re Norton Rose Fulbright – a global law firm with over 50 offices and 7,000 employees worldwide. We provide the world’s preeminent corporations and financial institutions with a full business law service. At Norton Rose Fulbright, our strategy and our culture are closely entwined. We know that our expansion will mean little unless it is underpinned by truly global collaboration and we understand that pioneering work only takes place when our people have room to move and think beyond boundaries. As well as the relevant skills and experience, we’re looking for people who are innovative, commercial and value the work that they do.