Head of Planning, Forecasting and Reporting

Permanent Head of Planning, Forecasting and Reporting based in West YorkshireOffering up to GBP65,000 and flexible working arrangements

About Our Client

This is an exciting time to join the University of Leeds, in 2021 we published our new 10-year values driven strategy: Universal values, Global Change. At the heart of this strategy is the ambition to create stronger impact locally, nationally and globally; harnessing our expertise to drive change and help create a more equitable and sustainable future.

Vice-Chancellor Simone Buitendijk and the University's leadership team are focused on creating an equal and diverse values-driven organisation. We aim to create an inclusive environment that attracts, develops and retains the best staff and students from all backgrounds, supporting them to achieve their ambitions and, in so doing, contributing to our institutional strategic aims.

Job Description

This is a new, exciting high profile role which will be at the heart of delivering the University's financial strategy.

We are recruiting a senior role to lead the University's financial planning, forecasting and reporting activity. We are looking to grow our planning and forecasting capability, leveraging the benefits of a new planning tool and delivering a more efficient process to create greater opportunities to focus on providing value adding insight and analysis. The role will work closely with the Director of Finance, Head of Management Accounting and Faculty & Service finance leads, and will lead and develop a small central team. We are looking for a commercially aware candidate with good experience of financial planning and analysis. The role holder will build strong oversight and understanding of the University's financial plans and forecasts, being able to identify potential issues and challenges, as well as being able to clearly articulate outcomes to senior stakeholders. Being able to work through detailed issues and analysis, but also operate effectively at a senior level will be a key success factor in this role. The role holder will also develop strong relations with faculty and service teams, which will be key to delivering well managed and successful planning and forecasting processes for the University.

As mentioned we really want this colleague to take forward our planning, forecasting and financial MI capabilities. They will need to draw on their own strong experience to do this, and lead the team effectively through a period of change and development. As part of this we are implementing a new planning system. The Head of Planning, Forecasting & Reporting will be the finance business lead and product owner for this project, ensuring that we design and deliver a product that will realise important benefits and process improvements for our financial planning and forecasting activity.

The Successful Applicant

As Head of Planning, Forecasting & Reporting you will have:

• A Professional accounting qualification;
• Extensive experience of accounting, budget preparation and forecasting and of providing a professional financial and management accounting service for senior managers;
• Experience of providing high quality finance business partnering support, including senior stakeholder engagement;
• Ability to interpret data strategically and affect decision making through excellent influencing and negotiating skills;
• Evidence of the ability to build successful relationships and promote excellent team working practices both externally and internally and at all levels of an organisation;
• An ability to understand the business complexities and technical matters, and to provide a clear financial and commercial perspective, including presentation to colleagues of all disciplines
• Evidence of effectively initiating and implementing process change;
• Ability to establish priorities and consistently deliver accurate, timely and relevant data to tight deadlines.

You may also have:

• Experience of working in a Group, Divisional or other Central Finance function, managing processes for collating plans or reports from subsidiaries/business units.
• Experience of SAP and IBM Planning Analytics or a similar Planning system

What's on Offer

Benefits on offer:

• Basic salary between GBP51,799 and GBP65,573 depending on experience
• Flexible working arrangement
• Highly competitive pension (there are different schemes but employer contribution can vary between 10%- 20%!)
• 25 days holiday plus 15.5 Bank Holidays/days that the University is closed by custom (including Christmas)
• Health and Well-being: Discounted staff membership options at The Edge, our state-of-the-art Campus gym, with a pool, sauna, climbing wall, cycle circuit, and sports halls.
• Access to on-site childcare, shopping discounts and travel schemes are also available.

Where specific UK qualifications are required we will take into account overseas equivalents. All third party applications will be forwarded to Michael Page.

Ref Code: MPREJN -072543ZClosing Date: 30/09/2022