Senior Finance Manager - Planning

Ocado Group is an equal opportunities employer and as such makes every effort to ensure that all potential employees are treated fairly and equally, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, marital status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, age, or disability or union membership status.

About Us

Our teams are putting the worlds retailers online using the cloud, robotics, AI, and IoT. We provide services to partner clients globally via our innovative advanced robotics technology, known as the Ocado Smart Platform ("OSP"), this drives our highly automated, multi-million-pound Customer Fulfilment Centres (CFCs).

In our CFCs - together with the proprietary software applications - we operate a world-class online grocery business that automates the single pick of products, ready for your online delivery.

About the role

Ocado is about innovation and being prepared to navigate change to deliver. Our ideal candidate will have the resilience to manage an ever-changing environment and the flexibility to evaluate changing priorities with the support of the wider team.

We are currently looking for a Senior Finance Manager (Financial Planning) to help us accelerate business planning by providing best-in-class planning tools and processes to ensure we are always a step ahead.

The FP&A team is driven and motivated; were willing to take risks and try new things in our drive for continuous improvement.

The ideal candidate for this role would want to build on this approach as they set the strategic direction for Financial Planning across the Group.

This is an exciting role where the ideal candidate has the opportunity to make a significant impact on the ways Ocado Group executes our financial planning for our stakeholders.

By partnering with our internal and external stakeholders, you will understand their planning requirements and work with the team to meet and exceed these requirements.

You will have the opportunity to interact with a group of exceptional finance professionals across Ocado Group Finance as well as with our commercial stakeholders and the executive team to deliver insight that will drive real value.

Accountabilities

• End-to-end strategic leadership of planning and forecasting processes
• Owns full planning cycle (5YP, Budget, Forecast, R&Os and monthly outlook)
• Responsible for FP&A strategic change initiatives and other key finance change projects, supported by and supporting the Finance Transformation team
• Monthly outlook reporting and analysis
• Delivering robust and accurate financial forecasts and long-term planning, including developing and delivering a rolling long-term forecast model
• Drive material improvements in Ocados approach to financial planning
• Define and manage the definitions of key business metrics to ensure consistency
• Regular external / internal insight on relevant themes (e.g. capacity performance and changes, client trend analysis, impact of utilities on our cost base, FX impacts on the P&L etc)
• Ownership of the planning data sources for FP&A, including financial and non-financial data
• Deliver external reporting information for Investor Relations and the External Reporting team
• Produce central, collated capital forecasting and analysis
• Support relevant ESG reporting and seek to improve FP&A engagement in this area
• Own the relationship with the Commercial Finance teams, alongside the SFM - Reporting & Insights
• Excellent engagement with the Reporting & Insights team to ensure a thorough and robust understanding of actuals and trend data
• The ideal candidate will be ready to introduce rolling forecasting to Ocado Group and make material changes to how we interact with our EPM Planning tool
• Act as the first-line reviewer of the FY24 Budget exceptions process before these are submitted to the Head of Finance and Management team, supported by your team.
• Be an exceptional leader and mentor to your direct report(s) and the wider finance team

About you

• 10+ years experience in a Finance role, preferably with strong experience in commercial finance and FP&A
• Relevant accounting qualification, or equivalent experience (e.g. CIMA, ACCA, ACA, CFA, MBA)
• Degree qualified preferred but candidates with non-degree experience will be fully considered
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Experience in evolving, complex and challenging businesses
• High levels of resilience and positivity
• High EQ and excellent stakeholder management capabilities
• Comfortable with ambiguity
• Self-driven to both begin and complete activities
• A strong people leader with excellent interpersonal skills
• Willing to take a hands-on and collaborative approach to solving business problems, never heard saying thats not my job

What we offer you

Our employee benefits are designed for you, we care about people and weve ensured we have a wealth of benefits that focus on your well-being.

We regularly review our benefits to ensure we are supporting our employees appropriately.

• 30 days working from anywhere in the world policy
• Wellbeing support through dedicated apps and an Employee Assistance Programme
• 25 days annual leave, rising to 27 days after 5 years service (plus optional holiday purchase)
• Pension scheme (various options available including employer contribution matching up to 7%)
• Generous Private Medical Insurance (within the first month of joining!)
• Income Protection (can be up to 50% of salary for 3 years) and Life Assurance (3 x annual salary)
• 22 weeks paid maternity leave and 6 weeks paid paternity leave (once relevant service requirements complete)
• Train Ticket loan (interest-free)
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Free shuttle bus to and from Hatfield Train Station to the Hatfield offices
• Free shuttle bus to and from Welwyn Garden City Train Station to the Welwyn Garden City offices
• Opportunity to participate in Sharesave and Buy as You Earn share schemes
• 15% discount on Ocado.com and free delivery for all employees (within the first month of joining!) #LI-HYBRID #LI-JK1

About Ocado Group

When our journey started, we were all about changing the way people shop for groceries. 20 years later, were developing our own ground breaking technology, opening multiple sites at an accelerating rate and engaging in exciting new business partnerships around the world!

Transforming an industry also means transforming the way we do business. As we continually develop new technologies and customer propositions, were looking for the Everyday Pioneers to lead us into the next stage of our evolution : enhancing our capabilities, inspiring our teams and developing new ways of working.

Changing the way the world shops, for good.