Finance Business Partner - Europe - Commercial & Service

Company Description

John Crane, a business of Smiths Group, is a global leader in mission-critical flow control solutions for energy and process industries that enable efficient and sustainable operations. Our products include mechanical seals and systems, couplings, bearings, filtration systems, and predictive digital monitoring technologies.

We have a global network of more than 200 sites in over 50 countries and employ more than 6,000 people worldwide. We partner with our customers to help them keep their operations safe, reduce downtime, improve efficiency, and meet the latest environmental standards.

John Crane is part of Smiths Group. For over 170 years, Smiths has been pioneering progress by engineering for a better future. We serve millions of people every year, helping to create a safer, more efficient, productive, and better-connected world across four global markets: energy, security & defence, space & aerospace, and general industrial.

Listed on the London Stock Exchange, Smiths employs approximately 16,000 colleagues in over 50 countries.

This role provides commercial finance support for the Europe Commercial region & Service network (with primary focus on the commercial aspects of the business). Reporting to the Director Finance, Commercial and Service, the individual will lead the performance reporting, investment decision support, budget/forecasting process, strategic planning support and general financial market intelligence for the Europe region and service network.

You will also business partner the Regional Senior Sales Director and Global Senior Service Director and are expected to provide incisive financial reporting coupled with recommendations for improvements and critical challenge where required. The individual will be key to ensuring delivery of the strategic roadmap for the region by ensuring the integrity of execution of our market and commercial strategy, creating, and supporting an unambiguous accountability for delivering end-to-end results.

• Ownership of all monthly consolidated data for the Europe region and the service network, financial planning process for all quarterly, annual, and strategic financial plans, including delivery of supporting materials.
• A strategic partner to their Commercial & Service Regional Senior Director providing leadership, direction and problem solving to address any fundamental issues that may deter from ultimately growing the core and profitability of the business within a strongly controlled environmentli>
• A strategic partner to the Global Service Senior Director providing support through the transition of sites to Customer Operations as well as providing analytics and reporting capabilities to better understand service centre profitability and drive efficiency across the network.
• Supports regional decision making to maximise revenue growth, working capital usage and service centre /manufacturing excellence and profitability.
• Acts as a regional expert understanding the drivers and nuances of the local business, providing timely, independent insight and updates to the Director Finance, Commercial & Service.
• Provides recommendations for reporting improvements, influences support across the globe and implements those enhancements where appropriate.
• Collaborates closely with the regional financial controller and individual country controllers to ensure a united yet efficient finance function is maintained.
• Inputs to the creation and presentation of the Commercial & Service financial strategy.
• Owns the initial financial assessment, post implementation reviews and regular reporting of the portfolio of Strategic Investments across the John Crane business.
• Financial consolidation and planning across the service centre network.
• Implementation and oversight of cost control policies across the service centre network.
• Strategic financial evaluation of service centre network projects.
• Enhanced decision support for manufacturing and service activities across the service centre network.
• Supports ad-hoc John Crane initiatives, projects or M&A activities including integration and information requests as directed by the Director Finance, Commercial & Service.

Candidates must have a proven track record of success in progressively more senior finance roles preferably including commercial and operations environments. Previous experience of working with a high-performing team in a multi-national, multi-cultural business is preferred.

The following experience, skills and personal attributes are key:

• Degree educated (minimum 2;1), ideally in Finance, Economics, Mathematics, or a related analytical discipline. A Master's qualification is advantageous.
• Qualified accountant (ACA / ACCA / ACMA / CFA) with 10+ years of relevant professional experience with a strong focus on Commercial, Operational and or Strategic Business Analysis preferably in a large multi-national business.
• Demonstrated proficiency in financial and economic modelling and…