Rutherford Cross is excited to be supporting Baxters Food Group with their search for a European Marketing Senior Finance Business Partner.

Baxters Food Group is a fifth generation privately owned entrepreneurial business which specialises in the manufacturing of premium quality food products. The Group's product range includes soup, beetroot, chutney, condiments, preserves and meal options.

The European Marketing Senior Finance Business Partner will sit with and report directly into the European Marketing Director and have an indirect reporting line into the European Head of Business Performance. The role's key responsibility will be to ensure that the Baxters business branded portfolio is generating the correct level of returns and new product launches meet the required investment hurdles to be launched and be successful in the marketplace.

This will be a highly visible role within Baxters and will be at the forefront of commercial decision making encompassing a wide variety of tasks such as Budgeting, Brand Plans, NPD decisions, liaising with Retailers and sitting as part of various weekly meetings concerning the commercial drivers of the business.

A summary of key responsibilities include:

• Being the right-hand partner to the European Marketing Director and working very closely with the European Head of Business Performance and their Commercial and Operation Finance teams, the Head of Market Strategy and Deployment, Head of New Product Innovation and the European Sales Director
• Responsible for producing, controlling and tracking the annual marketing budget ensuring all marketing spend is fully reviewed and generating the correct levels of return before commitments are made
• Chairing the period European Marketing Gatekeepers' meeting
• Continually reviewing the European business brand portfolio including every SKU with full P&L’s, including the Baxters, Garners, Simply Delicious and Fray brands, and, with the European Marketing Director, recommending changes and improvements to the returns being generated
• Working closely with the European Sales Director to implement these changes. The Marketing team will be held fully responsible for the profitability of the portfolio and advising the Sales team of changes that are required in the marketplace
• Compiling strategic commercial business cases including full P&L costings for all new product innovation for the first three years post launch, ensuring that company hurdles rates are achieved. Following product launch, conduct post implementation reviews of how new products have performed from a financial perspective
• Providing full support and financial input to the Marketing team when producing the annual category and brand plans
• Ensuring costings of products are produced using budgeted standard costs but also compared to latest view on costs provided by Procurement and Operations teams to ensure the financial returns are robust into the first three years

Key Attributes

• Qualified accountant – ACA / ACCA / CIMA
• Significant experience of working in a branded food or drinks manufacturing business
• Essential experience of working in a commercial finance role with a branded business supporting Marketing and Sales teams
• A strong track record of producing detailed budgets and continual review
• Advanced Excel user and ideally experience of Oracle
• Passion for food, high level of energy and very strong financial acumen
• Ability to produce sound financial analysis to justify key decisions and actions being taken to drive superior financial drive superior financial performance
• Ideally, experience of working in operations finance for understanding of the manufacturing process and product costings build would be useful
• Finely tuned presentation and communication skills, able to present information clearly and succinctly to a range of stakeholders

This role will be based onsite at the offices in Edinburgh city centre.

Baxters Food Group is an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital status or pregnancy and maternity.