Senior Finance Business Partner - 12-month FTC Maternity Cover in City of Westminster

We are excited to be recruiting a 12 month Fixed Term Contract to provide maternity cover for a Senior Finance Business Partner role. This role is specifically supporting our Commercial and Marketing teams within RDG and has line management responsibilities of 1 Finance Business Partner. This role will allow the post holder to provide insight, analysis and challenge to help drive value for money within the RDG budgets for our members. You will be required to be involved in month end activities, budgeting and forecasting, plus then ad hoc support as your stakeholders require.

To provide business partnering support to key budget holders within RDG. This will include providing reporting, enabling financial planning, providing key analysis and challenge for your stakeholders in order to facilitate responsible financial decision support and cost management to provide best value for money for our members. We have a small number of Senior Finance Business Partners who are each aligned to different areas of the business. This role is supporting the Commercial and Marketing areas of the business whose work includes the annual marketing campaigns for the whole rail industry, and supporting Third Party Retailers.

The role holder will be expected to be proactive in their approach and explore solutions to financial challenges that arise within the role. You will be given autonomy to work with your stakeholders as best fits, while maintaining consistency across all business partners in the high quality of service we provide.

• Budgeting - enable the annual budget for your key budget holders. This will include communicating key timelines and expectations, supporting with analysis and challenging assumptions ahead of wider reviews.
• Forecasting - provide in depth quarterly forecast updates to the budget, plus lighter touch monthly forecasts, working with your budget holders to understand key movements and changes to assumptions.
• Reporting - produce accurate and timely financial business reports each period to enable business areas to monitor cost performance and to have the information they require to alter their operations, if necessary, to ensure optimisation of their budget. Prepare internal finance papers for the RDG Executive Management, plus additional reporting as required.
• Month end processing - you will be required to complete month end journals and analysis to ensure the position at close of period end is reflective of the activities that have been completed that month. You will need to make judgement calls on accruals and prepayments.
• Investment appraisals for key projects - working with the business, provide financial support by way of investment appraisal and financial project evaluation, utilising targeted cash flow models, and also providing a strategic review of business cases.
• Ad-hoc queries - support your key business areas with ad-hoc queries and requests for support and data. You will encourage self-service where possible, while ensuring the finance voice of the organisation is valued in decision making.
• Training - ensure business areas are familiar with and complying with financial best practice for example the use of purchase orders, timely forecasts, use of the budgeting tools. Provide training (system and policy) to budget holders and their designated staff with budget responsibility.
• Mentoring - provide knowledge and assistance to other areas in Finance and to the junior members of the Finance department to enable the Finance department to provide a first class service to the business.
• Line Management - if line management is included in the role, ensure all line management duties are completed. This includes regular catch ups including feedback and ongoing development and coaching of your direct report.
• Relationships - establish and develop relationships with your business area, wider business and possibly external stakeholders in order to know and understand key elements of the business. This will facilitate an optimal level of service provided to the business.
• Continual development - ensure continual professional development, both technical and personal, is performed to allow continued membership of the ACCA/ICA/CIMA. This will enable the standards in the Finance department to remain high.

This is a hybrid role with our office being based at Blackfriars in London. You should expect to be in the office 1-2 days a week, but with flexibility to attend key company events or meetings in person as required.

• Qualified Accountant or Qualified by Experience - we are open to all qualifications.
• Advanced Excel skills - ability to use Excel to analyse and present data in a variety of different ways to suit your audience.
• Experience of budgeting, month end and forecasting.
• Confidence to challenge senior budget holders to ensure value for money for members.
• Problem Solving and Decision Making.
• Creative and analytical thinking.
• Relationship building and customer/stakeholder focus.
• Championing of continuous improvement – both within this role and for your stakeholders.
• Ability to tailor communication to your stakeholders, and ability to make finance accessible to non-finance colleagues.

• Experience with Netsuite or Oracle PBCS – training will be provided during your induction to the role.
• Line management – training and support can be provided, and training on RDG policies will be provided regardless of experience.

We are open to applicants from a variety of backgrounds, and are open to making reasonable adjustments for anyone with a disability.

• 75% off rail travel for personal and family use, plus international rail discounts.
• 30 Days annual leave (plus buy/sell options and additional leave for key life events).
• Season ticket loan for commuting costs.
• Enhanced family leave – 30 weeks full pay for maternity, adoption, surrogacy, and shared parental leave.
• Pension scheme – up to 11.58% employer contribution.
• Private medical insurance (Vitality PPP) including mental health and specialist care.
• Discounted gym membership and access to wellbeing programmes.