Financial planning and analyis lead

A high growth buy and build Private Equity backed business is seeking an FP&A Lead to take on a newly created role.

As our FP&A Lead, you will be the "bridge" between raw data and strategic decision-making. You aren't just a number cruncher; you are a storyteller who uses financial data to help us understand where we’ve been and, more importantly, where we’re going. You will play a pivotal role in the budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis processes that drive our operational strategy.

In this role you will also be responsible for building out our database capabilities from the ground up.

Key Responsibilities

1. Data & Reporting

Dataset Management: Act as the owner for the centralized finance datasets, ensuring data integrity & consistency, optimized reporting structures to maximise the business benefit from integration Finance, ERP, CRM and other data sources.

Data transformation & Presentation: Manipulate and transform data from various sources using SQL and Power query, and buildautomated, "self-service" reporting using Power BI for the wider business.

Architecture: Assist the Head of FPA in transition the finance function away from manual workbooks towards a centralized, database-driven reporting environment, and understand opportunities to leverage AI.

2. Cash Management & Liquidity

13-Week Cash Flow Ownership: Support the Head of FP&A in consolidating the rolling 13-week cash flow forecast for the group and elevating the processes in place.

Treasury Management: Monitor daily cash positions and support the Head of FP&A in managing the group treasury function.

Working Capital Optimization: Use data to identify trends in Accounts Receivable (DSO) and enable the portfolio companies to collect cash more efficiently.

3. FP&A & Strategic Insight

Budgeting & Forecasting: Support the annual planning process by providing the data-driven "base layer" for departmental budgets.

Variance Analysis: Deliver monthly deep-dives into P&L performance, using your custom-built SQL views to drill down into transactional-level detail.

Business Partnering: Support the CFO, COO and department heads with "what-if" scenario modelling or ad-hoc reporting.

The Ideal Candidate

The Technical Toolkit

Hard Skills (Must-Haves)

Power Query (M): Experience in data transformation, cleaning, and automating workflows within Excel or Power BI.

Financial Modelling: Advanced Excel skills with the ability to build robust, dynamic models that integrate with external data sources.

SQL: Proficiency in writing and optimizing queries (Joins, CTEs, Window Functions) to extract and manipulate data.

Database Management: Understanding of relational database structures and data warehousing concepts.

Experience

Experience in FP&A, Data Analyst, or Commercial Finance role.

Soft Skills

Curiosity: You don’t just report a variance; you go find out why it happened.

Communication: The ability to explain complex financial concepts to non-finance stakeholders.

Agility: Comfortable working in a fast-paced environment where priorities can shift quickly.