Finance Business Partner

Job Description & Summary

• The Finance Business partner role serves as the strategic finance partner to leadership, converting financial, commercial and operational data into forward-looking insight and disciplined action. The role supports execution of line of service strategy, profitable growth, cash conversion, engagement economics and operational excellence across countries, business units and cross-border engagements.

Job Description

• Provide financial input into line of service (LoS) strategy, annual plans, budgets and forecasts at LoS, business-unit, country and cost-centre level.
• Maintain strategy and KPI tracker covering financial and operational priorities, and highlight exceptions requiring leadership intervention.
• Prepare clear weekly, monthly and quarterly management insight on net revenue, production, utilisation, realisation, engagement margin, CSS cost, direct costs, controllable margin and net income.
• Translate performance movements into business implications, options and recommended actions
• Undertake country, business-unit and thematic deep dives when requested by leadership.
• Analyse pipeline, secured work, win targets and win/loss trends by business unit, sector, country and priority account, working with the relevant functional owners.
• Support opportunity pricing and engagement budgeting, including recovery, margin, resourcing and cross-border commercial considerations.
• Coordinate finance input to bids and multi-country opportunities, escalating tax, legal-entity, exchange-control or policy matters to the appropriate specialists.
• Provide leadership with scenario analysis on revenue conversion, capacity, cost and margin implications.
• Act as the principal Finance adviser on project and contract setup, project budgets, billing arrangements, WIP valuation, provisions, adjustments and general NIC management.
• Monitor material engagements against commercial milestones and identify execution, revenue-recognition, margin, billing or recoverability risks requiring action.
• Drive timely and correct job-code opening for local and cross-border engagements, including coordination of Internal Firm Agreements and inter-territory billing with the responsible teams.
• Promote consistent accounting and reporting treatment across countries and business units.
• Provide disciplined oversight of billings, collections, debtors, WIP, ageing, provisions and write-offs, with transparent ownership and escalation.
• Analyse actual billings and collections against targets and distinguish timing issues, credit-term effects, tax deductions and genuine recoverability risks.
• Partner with leaders improve the engagement-to-cash cycle.
• Use dashboards and exception reporting to focus leadership attention on the most material balances and actions.
• Build effective working relationships with leadership, business-unit leaders, country Finance teams, Finance Centre of Excellence (COE's), Shared Services and other IFS functions.
• Coordinate regional allocations, inter-territory balances, cost-centre structures etc.
• Apply finance policies, controls and approval requirements, and escalate complex or unusual transactions for specialist or leadership review.
• Support business reviews, network requests and leadership forums with complete, reconciled and decision-ready analysis.
• Identify opportunities to simplify, standardise and automate recurring finance processes and reporting.
• Present concise, audience-appropriate financial narratives to leaders, clearly separating facts, assumptions, risks and recommended actions.
• Constructively challenge the business where assumptions, targets or actions are not supported by available evidence.
• Provide practical guidance and periodic training individuals and teams on relevant processes, reports and commercial disciplines.
• Oversee and coordinate project-support activities within the assigned portfolio, maintaining clear hand-offs and service expectations.

Qualifications, experience and knowledge

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Economics or a related discipline.
• Relevant professional qualification, such as CPA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent is required
• At least 4 years of relevant financial management or business-partnering experience; professional-services experience is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated experience in budgeting, forecasting, management reporting, profitability analysis and working capital management.
• Experience supporting senior stakeholders across multiple business units or countries and coordinating cross functional actions.
• Working knowledge of engagement economics, revenue, WIP, debtors, provisions, utilisation and margin in a project-based environment.
• Advanced Excel and PowerPoint capability; experience with Oracle, EPM, dashboards or comparable finance and BI tools is desirable.
• Practical awareness of controls and the commercial, tax, legal and regulatory considerations affecting contracts and cross-border work, with appropriate reliance on specialists.