Finance Director, East and West Africa - Consumer Health Care at GlaxoSmithKline

Requisition ID: WD182152
Location: Lagos
Job Type: Full time
Functional area: Finance

Detailed Description

• Performing finance partnering activities at a management level to support strategy and decision making with critical business insights, supporting one or more Commercial Business Unit Directors & their teams.
• Provides financial information and insight for forecasting, planning and controlling costs to the business. Focus is on financial accounting/analysis to support achievement of internal business goals. May be responsible for budgetary control system and business performance analysis.
• Develops, implements and maintains the financial plans and policies of the organisation. Establishes fiscal controls, prepares financial reports, maintains relations with investment and banking communities, advises management on financial affairs and assists in long-range planning. Responsibilities may include accounting, financial analysis, audit, tax, credit and collections.

Job Purpose

• Responsible for all financial matters relating to the Consumer Healthcare East Africa and West Africa businesses. Serves as Finance Business Partner for the East and West Africa leadership teams while providing overall leadership and direction to the Finance function. Also member of the GSK East and West Consumer Business leadership teams.

Scope

• Serve as Finance Business Partner for the East and West Africa business, covering 11 countries and total revenues of +/-£40m. Provide sound financial advice and counsel to the East and West Africa leadership teams. Responsible for supporting the leadership teams on all elements of strategy development and execution, resource allocation, portfolio management & opportunity identification and maximisation.
• Provide functional leadership and direction to the East and West Africa Finance organization totalling 4 employees. Responsible for talent management and development across the business.
• Identify and manage all financial and business risks across the East and West Africa business towards attainment of business and financial objectives; effectively communicate significant issues and risks to Africa as and when necessary

Essential Job Responsibilities

• Full responsibility for the delivery of all financial performance metrics in line with agreed targets.
• Lead all financial planning processes for East and West Africa, ensuring development of robust business plans and forecasts.
• Lead all financial reporting processes for East and West Africa, providing accurate and timely financial and other information to the East/West Africa Leadership Teams, Africa and Corporate, as required.
• Establish good relationships and manage SLA’s with in market ICSS.
• Identify and implement simplification opportunities and ensure delivery of Finance cost targets.
• Ensure all GSK Finance policies are implemented across the East and West Africa businesses; ensure appropriate accounting systems, processes and internal control systems are in place and in use in all East/West Africa markets and above country operations.
• Drive a Working Capital reduction program across the East and West Africa businesses, implementing best practice and ensuring delivery of Working Capital targets.
• Sponsor and support all Corporate/EMEA/MEA initiatives as they pertain to the East and West Africa businesses; e.g. working capital, E2E supply chain, Procurement etc.
• Support the CCC process and ensure a good relationship is maintained with GMS.
• Engage as active member of the Africa and MEA Finance community.
• Responsible for credit control and collections minimising risk across the region and ensuring on time collection of trade receivables balances.
• Manage trade payables balances from a working capital perspective.
• Support inventory reduction programs in partnership with Supply Chain.
• Lead business critical cross functional IT project teams.
• Review advertising and promotion strategies and ensure optimised spend efficiency and use of best practices.
• Lead talent management across the finance organisation in GSK East and West Africa and report annually on talent to MEA.
• Manage talent within direct reports, build succession planning within the team and ensure team is exposed to new opportunities where available.
• Partner closely with Compliance to manage a robust internal control environment and take ownership for embedded management monitoring.
• Implement the financial control and risk assessment framework across all business units and functions in the market.
• Ensure robust internal controls in place and in full adherence to corporate requirements.

Complexity:

• Role is complex due to many different market environments within East/West Africa. The role is also expected to lead many different projects at a time many of which are complex

Independent Thinking:

• The role requires a high level of independent thinking as the role leads the organisation from a finance perspective and deals with many different projects and aspects of the business at the same time.

Responsibility:

• Management of 4 finance employees
• Annual/monthly Planning: Ultimately responsible for the planning process within the company.
• Accountable for the annual 3/1 plan, U2 and monthly MPR process

Requirements
Qualifications:

• An undergraduate degree in Finance, Accounting or related field is essential.
• A qualified accountant and preferably a master’s degree in business administration, operations, strategy or finance.
• Over 10 years end-to-end finance and financial management experience.

Knowledge:

• Proven track record of risk management and compliance in a dynamic business environment.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, which enable liaison and negotiations with internal and external parties. (Distributors and suppliers).
• Able to use strong analytical and business partnering skills to evaluate business performance and generate solutions to business issues.
• Experience in working as a commercial business partner.
• Previous Consumer Health / FMCG experience is essential.
• Strong experience in compliance and internal financial controls

Preferred qualifications:

• Regional experience spanning East and West African markets is desirable.