Senior Finance Manager - Fashion Retail

Our client is a dominant player in the fashion retail space – particularly in Europe, where consistent growth and a strong brand have contributed to great success. Due to this growth, a new role has arisen within shared services for a commercially focused Senior Finance Manager within London HQ. This will be of specific interest to qualified Finance Managers with the combination of post-qual technical / business partnering experience, seeking a tremendous working environment, recognition which will stem from working for one of Europe’s top employers – in a fast-paced fashion business

Key responsibilities include;

• Coordination of budgets, forecasts and actuals across all shared service functions, liaising with the logistics and systems finance teams to ensure timely production of information consistently and accurately


• Working with the regional accounting centre to ensure accurate reporting of actuals and strong controls over shared service areas of the balance sheet – such as risk retention provisions and crucially all costs incurred yet not charged


• Manage allocation and communication of costs / variances / revised forecasts to brands and senior management


• Manage information provided to external investors in relation to shared recharges made to specific brands within the Group


• Coordinate monthly forecasts and actual charges related to the growing overseas areas of the business in the US and Asia


• Lead, develop and genuinely motivate two part-qualified Finance Analysts including substantial training and coaching of new graduates

In relation to shared services;

• Act as key point of contact for all shared service Directors and managers in day-to-day understanding of their costs


• Produce monthly shared service management accounts, providing a clear understanding of variances to forecast plus risks / opportunities to forecast


• Manage a team of Analysts to produce detailed MI on actuals / plans, including payroll planning, analysis of key contractual costs and legal costs across the group


• act as key point of contact between the regional accounting centre and brands in terms of implementing a new reporting package


• Lead the team in providing accurate analysis appropriate to the audience – to tight deadlines


• Work with the budget holders to present the annual budget to the CEO and FD and also present monthly and bi-monthly forecast updates to the Group FC


• Provide input into the group 5 year plan

Candidate Requirements

• Fully qualified ACA, CIMA, ACCA or equivalent – with a strong combination of both business partnering skills – for a large FTSE / AIM-listed business ideally in retail – and technical group consolidations experience


• Strong, influential inter-personal skills; confident, professional and with a demonstrable track record of developing relationships with both finance and non-finance functions in particular


• Previous experience of managing a team of part-qualified and qualified Finance Analysts


• Possess strategic awareness and commercial acumen to see the big picture – thus able to present facts, take and present a balanced view, present proposals persuasively to both colleagues and key stakeholders


• Ability to to work unsupervised on adhoc projects as and when required

The Pro-Recruitment Groups consists of 3 distinct brands: Pro-Tax, Pro-Legal and Pro-Finance: