Head of Planning - Retail

The Consultancy Group are currently looking for a Head of Planning to join an International Retailer based in Central London.

Reporting in to the Group Head of FP&A this is an opportunity for a Qualified Accountant with 5+ Years of post qualified experiece to join a Global Retailer looking to expand their International presence.

Responsibilities:

Planning: Monthly reporting and forecasting

• Planning management: Continuous management of short term and long term plans, including submission and review dates and analytical outputs, for all key FP&A actions and deliverables with respect to both reporting and forecasting.
• Process management: Production and distribution of Group Finance instructions. Enabling long lead times and clarity of requirements across Group. Support for markets on understanding of data requirements, especially where changes have been made
• Continuous improvement: Where improvements and changes are identified the role will have significant responsibility for managing the process and driving change. Including the tracking of forecast accuracy and supporting the team to drive improved accuracy across the Group.

Forecasting and Management Reporting

• Monthly performance reporting: Support the FP&A manager and analyst in the production and consolidation of monthly balanced scorecards to support the core business performance management processes. Analysis of monthly markets' submissions. Production of monthly packs to the Executive Committee and Board through management of the FP&A analyst.
• Forecast reporting: Support the FP&A manager and analyst in the creation of: output reports for management reporting, key consolidation reports for forecasts, including Key Line Summaries and P&L reviews by metric.
• Continuous improvement: Support the embedding of high quality management reporting across the Group and allocating time to developing the knowledge and skills of the FP&A analyst.

Analytical

• Analytical review: Ad hoc analysis for both monthly reporting and forecasts.
• Systems liaison: Liaising closely with the finance systems team to ensure system requirments are met, including updates and maintenance of monthly and forecast templates, FX updates and changes required to deliver the right data to inform decision making.
• Capability development: Work as a team to drive consistent business performance analytics across the Group.

Requirements:

• Strong organisation and planning skills, coupled with an ability to prioritise
• Delivery focused with an ability to work to tight deadlines
• Process driven and high attention to detail
• Strong analytics and Excel modelling skills
• Knowledge of VBA programming and SAP (BPC) would be beneficial
• Inquisitive, numerical and analytical mind-set, keen to find answers in the data
• Strong interpersonal skills, able to create effective relationships with stakeholders at many levels
• Pro-active attitude