Head of Finance

Sowena Group are delighted to be exclusively partnering with a leading, entrepreneurial Manchester-based retail business to appoint a Head of Finance. This is a high-impact leadership role within a fast-growing organisation, offering the opportunity to shape financial strategy and build the infrastructure required to support continued scale and operational complexity.

Reporting to the Finance Director, the Head of Finance will be a key member of the leadership team, providing commercial insight, strengthening financial governance, and ensuring the business is well positioned to deliver on its ambitious growth agenda.

The role carries full ownership of the P&L and Balance Sheet, with responsibility for driving financial performance through robust analysis, commercial challenge, and strategic partnership with senior stakeholders across the organisation. The successful candidate will also play a critical role in delivering a range of divisional and group-wide strategic initiatives, helping to support the next phase of growth and transformation.

Responsibilities

• Full ownership of divisional month‑end close processes across the business.
• Ensure balance sheet accuracy and control across all teams.
• Lead commercial insights and analysis, challenging all aspects of the P&L to drive profitability.
• Deliver profit improvement and working capital initiatives across the division.
• Oversee budgeting and forecasting, providing both in‑month insight and rolling 12‑month projections to support strategic decision-making.
• Act as a business partner across all areas of the business to ensure investments drive sustainable, profitable growth.
• Lead, motivate, and develop a multi‑disciplinary finance team.
• Oversee day‑to‑day finance operations, ensuring an efficient, well‑controlled, and high‑performing finance function.

Leadership & Capability

• Inspirational finance leader with the ability to motivate and develop a high-performing team, driving accountability and alignment with the wider business strategy.
• Commercially focused with strong ownership of P&L performance, proactively identifying risks and opportunities and taking decisive action to optimise performance across the short, medium, and long term.
• Confident and credible communicator, able to influence and challenge a broad range of non-financial stakeholders while managing complex or difficult conversations constructively.
• Strong financial discipline, ensuring rigorous control of costs, challenging investment decisions, and maintaining a consistently well-managed balance sheet.
• Highly organised and adaptable, able to manage multiple priorities and lead teams effectively in a fast-paced, high-growth retail environment.
• Collaborative partner across the wider finance function, working closely with Group Finance, Tax, Treasury, Commercial Finance and Shared Services.

Experience & Qualifications

• Qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA or CIMA) with finance leadership experience within a complex, international organisation.
• Proven experience with full ownership of both P&L and Balance Sheet, ensuring strong financial performance, robust controls, and disciplined balance sheet management.
• Strong background in commercial finance, with a demonstrable track record in profit improvement, cost management, working capital optimisation, and the delivery of robust budgeting and forecasting processes.
• A credible and influential strategic partner, confident in challenging and supporting non-financial stakeholders at all levels to drive informed decision-making and business performance.
• Experience supporting major strategic initiatives, such as international expansion, transformation programmes, business restructures, or separations.
• Proven people leader, with experience building, managing, and developing large, multi-disciplinary finance teams in fast-paced environments.