Head of Commercial Finance - Planning

HomeServe are currently recruiting for a Head of Commercial Finance to join the Team in Walsall. This is a brand new role, ideal for someone looking to build their future career. As the Head of Commercial Finance you will have an inquisitive nature and not be afraid to ask questions if you feel a particular process isn't working. We work in a hybrid way, mostly remote with a requirement to travel into our Walsall office twice a week to work with the team. With that in mind you will be located within a convenient commute to Walsall. The Commercial Finance team are responsible for driving value to the organisation by delivering an effective & compliant pricing strategy; commercial business partnering to the operational teams; and management of internal and external commercial relationships. The team provides data driven insight and strategic decision-making support across the business to deliver improvements in commercial outcomes in order to fulfil HomeServe's short, medium and long-term objectives. PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITES BUSINESS PLANNING - LONG RANGE PLAN

• Build and maintain Long Range Plan (LRP) model for HomeServe UK utilising inputs from a variety of business inputs
• Lead the planning process and meet with senior stakeholders to understand the medium / long terms business plans for their areas to ensure these are effectively modelled in the LRP
• Develop the commercial modelling for policy sales / renewals, claims fulfilment and overheads to generate a full P&L for the plan period and associated variance analysis across versions. This includes financial and nonfinancial KPIs for UK Exec and Group requirements
• Ensure the various business areas assumptions and plans are aligned across the LRP to generate a cohesive overall financial plan for the plan period
• Provide meaningful bridging analysis to understand variance to prior plan / current performance. Ensure that any supporting analysis is appropriate to the audience
BUSINESS PLANNING - BUDGET / FORECAST
• Own the commercial consolidation of the annual budget & monthly forecast processes, liaising with other members of the Commercial Finance team and Financial Reporting & Control teams to ensure a consistent approach
• Understand the movements across all of the Commercial Finance areas and ensure they are underpinned by sound assumptions. Produce supporting bridging analysis to present to Director of Commercial Finance for approval
• Ensure risks & opportunities are identified and drive actions to deliver the opportunities and mitigate risks by working with operational and finance colleagues
• Ensure a deep understanding of the commercial drivers of the P&L and the performance metrics on a weekly/monthly basis & identify trends. Use these trends to drive corrective actions both with finance and nonfinance colleagues
NEW PRODUCTS / INITIATIVES
• Act as Commercial Finance representative across all internal working groups to deliver new products and new initiatives
• Drive commercial thinking across the working groups to ensure that profit / cash is maximised whilst maintaining HomeServe's regulatory appetite
• Build investment appraisal analysis for new initiatives to assess the profitability in the short and long term ensuring that the assumptions are sound and robust. Drive commercial decision making to ensure the desired financial goals are achieved and present plans for approval to the relevant delegated authority
• Work in conjunction with non-financial teams to ensure operational processes are fir for purpose - or develop new processes to ensure project delivery is successful
COMMERCIAL LEADERSHIP
• Promote a commercial mindset across the team and across operational areas
• Challenge the status quo - lead and influence teams to follow new ways of working more efficiently
• Understand the end to end journey of HomeServe's P&L. Use this understanding to identify marketing opportunities to gain/retain more Customers or operate more efficiently to reduce costs
  
  You will hold a recognised accounting qualification and be experienced finance professional (ACMA, ACA, ACCA). You will have excellent analytical & numerical skills and pay particular attention to detail
• You will have an inquisitive nature to strive to understand the operational levers that underpin the performance of the financial statements - beyond the obvious KPIs
• You will have a logical and methodical mindset that enjoys looking for new ways to solve potential problems
• You will be happy to ask questions about why processes operate in the way they do until you are satisfied that you understand. If you think there is a better way of doing something, you will take ownership of the delivery of your proposal
• You enjoy analysing potentially large & complex datasets to drive better outcomes and you are able to present your findings and make recommendations in a clear, easy to understand way
• You are comfortable operating at a very detailed level and you demonstrate tenacity to get to the answer you need
• You will be experienced in building commercial models that can be used to plan various scenarios across a large business unit
DESIRABLE
• You will have experience of the general insurance industry or working in an FCA regulated environment
• You will have significant experience in influencing senior stakeholders
• You will have experience of working in a firm where SOX controls apply
• You will have experience of launching a new product or service and have actively been involved in the planning, launch and subsequent optimisation of this
• You have experience of using Oracle / Hyperion accounting software
  
  Not Specified