The Company

Lazy Day Foods is a high-growth, free-from, baked foods manufacturing business that has grown significantly in recent years, with expectations of further expansion. Lazy Day Foods was founded by Dr Sally Beattie and Emer Bustard in 2006.

Lazy Day Foods produce a range of cakes, biscuits and tray bakes from their dedicated free-from bakery in North Lanarkshire. The bakery is totally gluten free, dairy free, and egg free, and there are no nuts on site either.

The mission of Lazy Day Foods is to bring a little relaxation and happiness into the busy lives of people with food intolerances or those on restricted diets such as vegans.

Lazy Day products are sold across the UK through major supermarket retailers and also in food service and the independent sector. Lazy Day Foods manufacture both branded goods as well as private label products for supermarkets. The business has invested significantly in its people and infrastructure in recent years and has capacity to grow substantially to match market demand. The business employs over 100 people.

The business has real ambitions for growth in the coming years and to navigate this, particularly in a climate of dynamic supply chain challenges and tight margins, the need for in-house financial leadership has been identified.

Background to the Opportunity

As Lazy Day Foods embarks on this exciting next chapter to scale up, the Board of Directors are looking for finance to have a greater influence on business decision-making. With this in mind, the business has decided to appoint a Financial Controller with the opportunity to move into the Financial Director role in the short to medium term.

This is an exciting, progressive opportunity for a talented finance professional with the desire to join a high growth food business and play a key part in its journey. The successful individual will be joining a friendly, supportive and passionate team. It is crucial that the appointed candidate is a dynamic and driven accountant with the ability to drive financial performance within an expanding business.

The appointed individual must be eager to develop a strong understanding of the operations beyond finance. The Financial Controller will possess excellent communication skills both verbal and written. The individual must be comfortable to engage with stakeholders across all levels of the business and convey financial information to non-financial colleagues. The post-holder will be highly analytical, with the ability to challenge and utilise data to provide key insights to a high level of accuracy. The individual must be able to build strong relationships across all areas of a business.

The Role

Job Title: Financial Controller

Reports to: Joint Managing Directors

Location: Harthill, North Lanarkshire

Key Priorities of the Role Include:

• Work collaboratively with the senior leadership team and influence decision making across the business
• Manage and develop a small finance team

Take ownership of financial reporting:

• Oversee the completion of the management accounting process
• Manage and perform month-end financial close activities, including preparation and reviewing of journal entries, reconciliations, analysis, and internal and statutory reporting
• Development and delivery of insightful MI to support strategic decision-making
• Responsible for KPI reporting and ensuring trends are understood and shared with key stakeholders
• Providing key financial insight to the sales and marketing teams
• Develop and cost customer agreements as well as brand and promotional strategies within retailers and export customers
• Own the financial evaluation of Commercial NPD projects from concept to post launch

Take ownership of the business planning cycles, budgeting and forecasting and reforecasting processes:

• Implement and continually develop robust costing models to ensure optimum labour and material recovery rates are delivered, influencing key operational counterparts
• Monitor performance against the budget and driving performance corrective action improvement through the Senior Leadership Team where necessary
• Day to day cash management and forecasting
• Challenge and develop the current process and methodologies and push for continuous improvement
• Develop working capital reporting and forecasting across the business • Preparation of robust business justifications for capital, feasibility and improvement projects

Partner with the Supply Chain team to improve business processes and ensure they understand key cost drivers and agree value add actions:

• Review contracts with vendors to ensure greatest margins are achieved
• Ensure business plans are accurately quantified and the financial impact for the business is clearly communicated, highlighting key drivers & assumptions to allow informed decisions
• Where required/appropriate manage external relationships with bankers, auditors, other professionals, customers and key suppliers

The Individual

The role of Financial Controller is suited to a qualified accountant who has experience in the FMCG sector, with the ability to present financial information clearly, concisely and in an engaging manner. The individual will have strong attention to detail and the ability to identify business improvement opportunities and drive implementation. The post-holder will possess the ability to prioritise and adapt to a changing workload effectively as the business continues to evolve.

The Financial Controller will bring best practice from previous roles to improve financial processes and will build positive and influential relationships across the business. The role with Lazy Day Foods represents an excellent career, as the Financial Controller will join the business with a view to becoming Finance Director and take a place on the board within the short to medium term.

Key Candidate Requirements:

• Qualified accountant (CA, ACCA, CIMA)
• Strong commercial acumen with particular focus on margins and profitability
• Proven experience in the development and delivery of management information and financial analysis
• Ability to manage and develop a small finance team
• Advanced Excel skills working with large and complex spreadsheet models
• Relevant experience, in either FMCG environment or manufacturing
• Understanding of the NPD process
• Confident communicator at every level, with strong inter-personal and influencing skills
• Committed individual, displaying drive, ambition, and professionalism
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment

Remuneration

The salary on offer and wider benefits package will be competitive, reflective of the opportunity. There will be an element of flexibility in working model, however in order to fully understand the business and influence decision-making, the Financial Controller is expected to be on site most days. For more information on remuneration please contact Jonathan Donnelly at Rutherford Cross.

The Recruitment Process:

Applications should be sent to Jonathan Donnelly at Rutherford Cross: [email protected]

• Initial interviews are with our retained advisors at Rutherford Cross
• First round interviews will involve meeting the Co-Managing Directors
• Second round interviews will involve meeting the Co-Managing Directors and the Chairman