Commercial Finance Business Partner

Permanent, full time

Location: London (Paddington), hybrid (3 days per week in office) 

About Us

We are DS Smith, together with International Paper, we are a global leader in sustainable packaging solutions and other fibre-based products. We believe a better, more sustainable tomorrow is possible with the right people, who challenge and support one another to enact positive change. We employ more than 65,000 colleagues in North America and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), who are experts in innovation, manufacturing, design, sales, sustainability, supply chain, and much more. Together with our customers, we make the world safer and more productive, one sustainable packaging solution at a time. Become part of a world-leading organisation and do your best work with us!

About the role 

The Commercial Finance Business Partner role sits within our Packaging Division Commercial Finance team and reports to the Head of Commercial Finance. This is a broad, commercially oriented role covering several aspects of our global trading for the Packaging Division.

As a Commercial Finance Business Partner / Manager, you will be at the heart of our strategic planning and decision-making processes. Your role will involve providing valuable analysis and insights to support and drive the Divisional Sales & Marketing teams on competitive initiatives, business planning and new business streams. There is a particular focus on E-commerce, Point of sale and other new service offerings. This role partners with the various teams to deliver performance and decision support, manage inflationary impacts, and drive appropriate actions through the sales team.

Your remit will include but not limited to:

• Delivering robust, timely, accurate and useful financial information and analysis;

• Work with business partners to develop dependable short- and medium- term forecasting/ budgeting, ensuring that planning processes are geared towards action, mitigating risks and maximising opportunities;

• Drive performance against budget & forecasts, challenging stakeholders on variances and driving actions to mitigate against risks;

• Elevate the standard of commercial analysis, ensuring we continually learn and seek to improve our commercially driven mindset;

• Develop a profitability view for embedded service offerings – asses the viability and value of these initiatives and offer proposals;

• Own the Pricing mechanisms process, and partner closely with the commercial operations team to understand the underlying customer contractual agreements. Work closely with the Profit Lead to understand the end-to-end impact of our pricing policies. Developing a solid understanding of the paper commodities market will be integral to an effective delivery;

• Actively participate in the growth of a highly motivated team. Showing leadership and providing guidance to team members earlier in their careers. Delivering through others will be a key skill here.

About you 

• A formal finance qualification with a degree-level education is required;

• Previous experience in Commercial Finance/ FP&A is a must;

• Proven ability to operate and navigate in a multinational, corporate environment, with profound experience of working in matrix roles. Experience within FMCG is highly desirable;

• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with proven ability to deal with stakeholders on a Senior Management level. Precise and succinct communication is key in this role;

• Advanced skills working with MS Office tools (Excel particularly); Financial modelling experience preferred; experience with Power BI, Anaplan, Cognos reporting or similar is highly desirable;

• Ability to manage challenging conversations in an effective and conciliatory way;

• Ability to make decisions without having the full data view, and to find innovative ways of solving and pre-empting problems.

Benefits 

• Competitive salary

• Discretionary bonus

• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays 

• Car allowance

• Pension scheme, life assurance and income protection

• Private medical insurance

• Salary sacrifice electric car scheme

• Employee Assistance Programme

• Employee Discounts

• Cycle to work scheme

To fulfil our purpose of redefining packaging for a changing world, we aim to build a diverse, motivated, and engaged workforce. Our goal is to create a culture of inclusion where everyone is treated fairly, differences are valued, and everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. 

Our people come from diverse backgrounds, bring different perspectives, ideas and experiences to generate unique solutions focused on present and future sustainability challenges. We welcome all candidates to apply, even those not meeting all criteria.

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