Senior FP&A Reporting & Planning Manager

Want to help us bring happiness to the world? Want to join an ambitious and fast growing global biscuits and confectionery business investing heavily in iconic global brands, infrastructure and people? Then this is the place for you. As proud bakers and chocolatiers and custodians of iconic global brands, we don’t compromise on the quality of ingredients in our products or on the people we hire. We are looking for entrepreneurial spirits who share our passion for bringing happiness to our consumers and who embody our Winning Traits.

To succeed at pladis you need to be purpose-led, resilient and positive to succeed here because we expect pace and agility, we insist on collaboration and demand accountability. If that is your thing, then pladis offers global ambition, a clear Vision and roadmap for success, challenge, and unrivalled opportunities to learn and make an impact.

Role Purpose

The Senior FP&A Reporting & Planning Manager sits within the FP&A team and has end‑to‑end accountability for UK&I financial planning, forecasting and management reporting, ensuring high‑quality, timely and decision‑relevant outputs for senior leadership and Group. The role owns the integration of actuals, forecasts, budgets and financial strategic plans, providing a single, coherent financial view of performance and outlook across the UK & Republic of Ireland. Operating as a senior FP&A lead, the role combines strong analytical capability with robust planning governance, clear financial storytelling and effective cross‑functional business partnering.

The role is a key partner to the Head of FP&A & CFO, supporting enterprise‑level decision making through insight, scenario analysis and clear articulation of risks and opportunities. The focus of the role is on ownership, clarity, and continuous improvement, ensuring plans and reports are trusted, explainable, and consistently applied across the business.

Key Responsibilities

• Financial Planning & Budget Leadership
  • Own the coordination and consolidation of the UK&I Financial Strategic Plan across a rolling 3–5 year horizon, ensuring plans are robust, well governed and clearly financialised, with explicit visibility of trade‑offs, priorities and strategic financial decisions.
  • Lead the annual Budget process, ensuring a driver‑based plan, with clear ownership, appropriate challenge and stretching but achievable targets.
  • Define and enforce planning standards, assumptions and timelines to ensure consistency and comparability across functions and segments.
  • Ensure all plans are clearly linked to business strategy, value drivers and operational assumptions.
  • Drive continuous improvement in planning processes, tools and governance, with a tenacious desire to simplify and automate.
• Forecasting, Reporting & Performance Insight
  • Own and continually evolve the monthly in‑year forecast and quarterly Group forecast process and deliverables, actively challenging assumptions, risks and opportunities to ensure outputs are robust, that the process drives business outcomes and ensures action.
  • Work closely with the business to build credible, driver‑based P&L and cash forecasts, including clear scenarios and explicit decision points.
  • Lead insightful analysis of monthly actual performance versus key comparatives, delivering a clear “so what?” narrative that highlights implications, trade‑offs and recommended actions.
  • Design, develop and deliver a relevant and insightful management reporting suite, partnering with the Head of FP&A and working with the FP&A Data Manager to ensure reporting remains fit‑for‑purpose and aligned to strategic priorities as the business evolves.
  • Own the financial narrative and performance story, ensuring transparent, well‑understood bridges between actuals, forecast and plan, underpinned by clear drivers and assumptions.
  • Actively challenge and refresh existing reporting and forecasting approaches, avoiding “business as usual” and ensuring insight, relevance and focus on what matters most.
  • Drive a continuous improvement, simplification and automation mindset, with a clear ambition to reduce manual effort and dependency through improved systems, data models and automated reporting solutions.
  • Proactively incorporate external benchmarks, competitor insights and market context to strengthen performance analysis, stretch thinking and support senior decision‑making.
• Governance, Integration & Financial Storytelling
  • Act as owner of planning and reporting governance across UK&I, ensuring strong linkages between actuals, forecasts, budgets and strategic plans.
  • Ensure P&L, Balance Sheet and Cashflow are fully integrated and consistently reflected across all planning horizons.
  • Maintain clear documentation of key assumptions, judgements and sensitivities underpinning plans and forecasts.
  • Ensure outputs are transparent, explainable and suitable for senior leadership and Group scrutiny.
  • Drive standardisation and simplification, reducing complexity and key person dependency.
• Leadership & Business Partnering
  • Lead and develop our FP&A Data Manager with a focus on nurturing their development and creating one central hub for Reporting.
  • Lead and develop the outsourced FP&A resource (Genpact x1), ensuring routine and structured activities are delivered efficiently and to a high standard.
  • Partner closely with Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, R&D and Group Finance / Group FP&A to deliver integrated financial plans.
  • Act as a trusted advisor to the Head of FP&A and CFO, providing ad‑hoc analysis, scenario modelling and decision support.
  • Contribute to finance transformation and strategic projects as a senior FP&A representative.
  • Support the UK&I Finance communication agenda, strengthening collaboration, engagement and a high‑performance finance culture.

Skills & Experience

• Essential
  • Advanced capability in Excel, PowerPoint and Power BI.
  • Good experience in FP&A, planning, forecasting and management reporting within a complex organisation.
  • Experience of consolidating and integrating financial plans across multiple stakeholders and data sources.
  • Ability to simplify complex financial information and communicate clear insights to senior, non‑finance stakeholders.
  • Proven ability to set standards, apply judgement and deliver to tight deadlines across multiple workstreams.
• Desirable
  • Qualified or part‑qualified accountant (ACA / ACCA / CIMA or equivalent).
  • Experience operating in FMCG.
  • Exposure to SAP/OneStream.

What Success Looks Like

• Plans, forecasts and reports are trusted, coherent and decision‑relevant.
• Senior leadership has a clear line of sight from strategy to financial outcomes.
• Performance movements, risks and opportunities are clearly understood with no surprises.
• Planning and reporting processes are efficient, well governed and continuously improving.
• FP&A operates as a single, aligned team with strong ownership and accountability.

pladis is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to hiring a diverse workforce. All openings will be filled based on qualifications without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, marital status, veteran status, disability, age, religion or any other classification protected by law.