Finance Business Partner – EMEA Commercial

Overview

Waters has an exciting and challenging opportunity for a Finance Business Partner - EMEA Commercial to provide business partnership, financial insights and analysis to support the EMEA business. This position is a member of the EMEA Finance Senior Leadership team, reporting to the Senior Director, Finance EMEA. This role is a high-visibility and high-impact role within the EMEA organization, interfacing daily with the EMEA Leadership team.

Based in either Paris, France or Manchester, UK, the successful candidate should be committed to international mobility to take advantage of career progression opportunities in both Finance and in the Commercial organization, which may require relocation.

• Business Partnering: The role actively contributes to growing the Instruments business profitably, supporting the EMEA Commercial VP and EMEA Senior Finance Director, and working closely daily with the EMEA Director of Commercial Excellence and the EMEA Senior Director of Marketing. Owns the performance management process from strategic priorities setting, forecasting, variance and trend analysis. Input into long term strategic planning, annual planning, assessing business potential and transformation.
  
  Delivers strong financial support on strategic ad-hoc studies (partnership, business case, investment scenarios). Key focus on KPI’s, deep dive into business drivers, provide guidance, challenge plans, offer solutions, and ensure full buy-in of senior management. Ensures effective communication and understanding of the financial & business performance and drives the decision-making process (corrective plans).

• Forecasting and Reporting: Drive commercial and operational forecasting and reporting for the EMEA business, with particular focus on the Instruments business. Work closely with EMEA and regional-level senior management and Finance Leads, regularly updating forecasts and driving quarterly performance, including KPI’s. In addition, work with the EMEA Leadership team to prepare for Quarterly Business Review and Annual Planning meetings with the Divisional Leadership team and with the Executive Committee of the company.

• Transformation: Work with regional and global teams to harmonise processes and procedures and take advantage of new tools and reporting as we move to SAP S4/HANA in 2026.

• Leadership: Participate as a member of the EMEA Finance Leadership team, actively engaging to help build an organization that successfully partners with the business in helping to meet our operational and strategic objectives.

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field, or comparable professional background.
• MBA or professional-level Accounting qualification, or comparable background, or equivalent experience, preferred.

• 7+ years’ experience, of which 3+ years’ working in a commercial Finance role in a large organization, ideally in Life Sciences, or an Industrial or FMCG environment.
• Experience partnering with commercial organizations, possessing a comprehensive grasp of the priorities, levers and dependencies of those teams.
• Past experience in a fast-paced environment, ability to adapt and deal with ambiguity.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office, PowerPoint and other business software.
• Experience of working within a diverse cultural setting.

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to partner with and present to senior executives.
• Ability to work within a complex matrix structure.
• Strong business, analytic and technical competence.

• Authentic - Operates with integrity, transparency, and humility
• Enterprise Minded - Acts as a true company owner to advance the overall organization interests
• Outside-In Problem solver - Carries a broad global perspective of markets, technologies, and trends
• Agile - Balances clear critical thinking and accountability in execution to deliver results
• People Focused - Actively creates the conditions for Waters’ people and teams to succeed.

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