Finance Manager - Franchise (6 Month Fixed Term Contract)

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Job Description

Summary

Fully woven into the DNA of M&S, our Finance team plays a fundamental role in setting the pace for our key business decisions, shaping our budgets, analysing our sales, managing costs and making sure our most vital statistics and data are absolutely accurate.

With a focus on adding new value to all business areas by helping them make data-driven decisions and understand what is driving commercial performance - it's our job to make sure the right tools, processes, governance, and ways of working are in place to support this.

We are looking for a highly motivated and commercially minded Finance Manager to join the Channels team, driving the P&L for a significant business area (>£1.1bn revenue per year, c450 franchise stores). This role is critical to the delivery of our revenue and profit targets; in addition to future growth across our partner base & channels through value-add analysis, challenge and insight.

The franchise business is broad and exposes the business to a variety of additional channels - most notably Local Convenience, Airports, Rail Stations, Hospitals, Forecourts, Motorway Services. Each channel is unique and customer missions vary accordingly - therefore commercial decisions need to be tailored by partner to deliver the best customer experience

To stay close to customers, our support teams are in the office three days a week as we believe that skills are developed through collaboration, and that spending time together makes us more creative and connected.

What's in it for you

Being a part of M&S is exactly that - playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We're an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special...

• After completing your probationary period, you'll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
• Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
• Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
• A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
• A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
• Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
• Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
• Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
• A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you're passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.

What you'll do

Your key accountabilities will include

• Work closely with the Channels Leadership Team, Head of Strategy, and Technology Lead to shape the overarching control and governance framework to manage partners in an optimal way. Ultimately being able to set the right foundations for future growth and effective negotiations, whilst efficiently managing internally from a systems and process perspective
• Act as the primary day to day point of contact across the M&S Franchise partner base on all finance matters to build strong relationships - through driving robust financial controls, governance and processes. In addition, supporting the delivery of Month End and sharing key partner trends
• Working with the Shared Service Centre to drive longer-term end to end ownership of applicable financial processes and controls and overseeing the implementation of recently embedded / new processes. Aligning with senior stakeholders to ensure the correct accountabilities are in place including across the Channels Leadership Team, and holding stakeholders to account
• Align with the commercial and category finance teams to enhance existing processes and build new processes where applicable, e.g. to drive visibility of partner rebates and P&L impacts. In addition, being able to incorporate commercial needs by building the right tools and frameworks
• Take ownership of a range of existing partner disputes - investigating and validating the issues through relevant modelling. Aligning with partners on resolutions to ultimately drive trust and confidence. Being able to identify common themes and financial / operational risks from disputes, ensuring the appropriate controls are proactively put in place to mitigate.

Who you are

Your skills and experience will include

• Qualified Accountant - CIMA/ACCA/ACA/CA
• Financial Processes, Governance and Controls experience, whilst having the ability to see the 'bigger picture' and prioritise
• Comfortable working with ambiguity and complexity, e.g. involving reconciliation of different data sets - systems understanding desirable (e.g. Power BI, SAP) and Advanced Excel
• Cross functional engagement with Technology and Governance teams, with strong communication to effectively engage with franchise partners
• Quick learner, curious, attention to detail with ability to simplify complexity

Everyone's welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We're disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We're transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don't hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

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