Global Head of Business Planning and Forecasting (Finance)

Standard Life Aberdeen plc is one of the world’s largest investment companies, created in 2017 from the merger of Standard Life plc and Aberdeen Asset Management PLC. Operating under the brand Aberdeen Standard Investments, it is the largest active manager in the UK and the second largest in Europe. Aberdeen Standard Investments is now a truly global Asset Manager with 46 offices and investment centres in 24 locations.

The newly formed Standard Life Aberdeen plc has a published ambition as follows:

“We are driven to be world class in everything we do, whether it’s looking after our clients’ investments, offering our employees a rewarding career path, or fulfilling our responsibilities to our shareholders.”

Following two back to back Class A transactions the opportunity now exists to review the overall structures and capabilities across the organisation with a view to creating a world-class finance function across the plc – one which reflects this vision statement, and which can help shape the future success of the business.

Under new leadership, and a new finance structure aimed at creating one finance function across Standard Life Aberdeen plc, there is now a requirement to add a Global Head of Business Planning & Forecasting to the business, which is one of three newly created roles.  This will be a senior, strategic and influential role within the business, reporting to the Head of Finance, who in turn reports to the Chief Financial Officer of Standard Life Aberdeen plc.

This role will have global responsibility for the business planning and forecasting team and the delivery of the annual Business Plan to the Executive and Board.

As a member of the senior plc finance leadership team you will also take responsibility for the delivery of the finance strategy, integration and future development and success of SLA finance as the function undergoes transformation.   This role requires significant senior leadership experience and influencing skills to ensure the finance function can help shape the future of the business.

Key Responsibilities:

• Play a key leadership role in the Finance function, contributing to the future direction and key activities of the function.  On a personal level be a role model to demonstrate the key behaviours expected in the function
• As part of the Finance leadership team, lead, direct and motivate a team of finance professionals to ensure clarity of purpose and work towards common goals
• Lead a small team responsible for owning and developing the processes and delivering critical planning and forecasting outputs of commercial significance for the success of the organisation, in particular:
• Prepare and execute the annual business plan culminating in the board papers and operationalisation of key items in functional plans
• Execute the quarterly forecasting processes providing insight on likely financial outturn, opportunities and risks/issues
• Lead the Finance input to the Quarterly Business Review process for the Executive Committee
• Embrace continuous improvement in work, enhancing activities and outputs by addressing feedback from previous cycles. Also use initiative to identify development opportunities in processes and outputs
• Develop forecasting process to embrace rolling forecasts and enhance visibility of forecasting results, analysis and commercial levers for improvement
• Work effectively with other teams in Finance, in particular Business Performance for reporting results, and Business Partners for the customer interface

For further information, to request a full candidate brochure or a confidential conversation please contact:

Michael Dickson at michael@fwbparkbrown.com

Alternatively, you can contact us by phone on 0131 539 7087

To apply please enquire or send your CV to enquiries@fwbparkbrown.com