The Finance Business Partner role within the Middle East and Africa team serves as a key business partner to the Region General Manager, reporting to the Finance Director responsible for Asia, Middle East & Africa regions. Responsibilities include providing financial insights, supporting long-term strategy, and driving performance for the business unit. You’ll work closely with stakeholders to track financial performance, offer forecasting and analysis, and foster cross-functional collaboration beyond finance boundaries. Vital to sustainable growth, you’ll support various transformation initiatives and collaborate with senior leaders to deliver country strategies and manage performance metrics effectively. As a trusted partner, you’ll leverage commercial acumen to provide actionable insights, supported by colleagues from FP&A and Global Business Services.

Responsibilities

• Deliver sustainable and profitable growth for the business unit and Cash optimization will be joint targets with the Regional General Manager along with full P&L ownership/responsibility.
• Partner with the Regional General Manager in the development of long-term Strategic Plans and Annual Budgets.
• Lead the development and delivery of strategy translation into short-, medium-, and long-term financial and non-financial targets and KPIs (EBIT, revenue growth, cash flow).
• Identify potential performance gaps and drive course correction through a balanced scorecard approach for the business.
• Partner with the supply chain team on developing a robust S&OP framework with support from commercial colleagues.
• Control of expenses and drive strategic allocation of resources across channels and regions and ways to improve commercial productivity.
• Establish good contacts with finance and commercial people at the distributor level and attend all quarterly business reviews with the GM and distributors ensuring financial objectives are monitored and properly documented
• Ensure the statutory requirement of the local entity in Dubai is compliant with all needed and applicable laws.
• Working with different stakeholders internally and externally to manage and comply with business requirements and applicable policies and procedures.
• Provide support on developing and tracking Investment initiatives new product launches and new market entrances. This includes the development of business cases and the post-event evaluation of investments.
• Drive and explore various organic/inorganic opportunities to drive business growth.
• Proactively anticipates business needs by adopting a mindset curious to understand business needs.
• Identify and utilize market and competitor insights to alert leaders in advance about alternate scenarios and explore possibilities.
• Develop frameworks/ models to ensure efficient and effective management of sales and marketing activity, including Advertising & Promotions.
• Provide leadership, direction, and support to GBS and FP&A teams on various activities like month-end close, financial analytics, etc.
• Partner with the Investor Relations team to provide narrative and storytelling about country performance for use in investor communications.
• As a senior representative in the finance function with deep knowledge of the country, support our finance function to grow together by sharing knowledge, with a particular focus on building commercial acumen within our FP&A team.

Qualifications & Skills

• Education in Finance, Accounting, Economics, and Business degree with professional certifications e.g., CPA, CIMA.
• Minimum of 8 years of post-qualification experience in commercial finance, finance business partner, or FP&A. At least, 5 years in a role overseeing commercial finance processes in a healthcare or FMCG organization.
• Commercial acumen/understanding of market drivers and dynamics in the Middle East and Africa.
• Strong knowledge of accounting principles, financial regulations, economics metrics, and data analytics.
• Demonstrated experience in driving business turnarounds, developed growth strategies, and partnered with Commercial Teams in driving return on marketing investments.
• Good interpersonal skills, excellent analytical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. Communication abilities to effectively collaborate and influence stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Ability to see the “big picture”, with attention to detail where necessary.
• Strong storytelling and networking capabilities.
• Experience with SAP / Hyperion / Power BI and other data analytics tools.
• Fluent in English. Arabic is a plus.

As a self-starter with an entrepreneurial spirit, you will apply your strategic thinking skills and growth mindset to drive business turnaround and transformation, consistently challenging the status quo. You foster a mindset of continuous improvement, translating strategies into actions and act as the ‘go-to’ Finance leader in the region.

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