The company

For 150 years, the Dobbies name has stood for quality horticulture. During this time Dobbies have been proud to provide the very best products and expert advice to gardeners throughout the UK. Today Dobbies is the UK's largest Garden Centre retailer with stores across Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. Naturally, Dobbies have one of the biggest and best ranges of quality plants and gardening equipment around. Dobbies currently have 74 stores across the UK, 69 of which are the well-known garden centre format encompassing our plants and gardening, home and food ranges, restaurants, and in some locations, soft play areas. Dobbies also have a number of concessions partner stores in most locations that complement the brand. Dobbies other five stores are little dobbies, which is a concept launched in 2019 with the opening of a smaller format store in Stockbridge, Edinburgh with others following in Bristol and London. This format store offers a miniature garden centre and gifting range in city centre locations.

Gardening remains one of the most resilient and fastest growing segments within the broader UK Retail sector. As a private equity backed business, Dobbies have doubled their garden centre estate in the last three years and have plans to sustain this going forward through both organic growth and further acquisitions. With over 3,900 employees, this is an exciting and vibrant place to work.

The role

Dobbies Garden Centres are seeking to recruit a FP&A Manager. This is an excellent opportunity for a qualified accountant to contribute to the leadership of the Financial Planning & Analysis team. You will work closely with senior stakeholders to increase the company’s efficiency and profitability by assisting with the formulation of both the medium and long-term financial budgets and measuring performance (both financial and non-financial) against these targets.

• Manage the preparation of key weekly and daily commercial reports to present financial results and KPIs to senior stakeholders, regional managers, and business divisions
• Support the Financial Reporting team with the assessing and explaining of month-end financial results and store performance
• Support the Regional Managers/CSO Managers with the preparation of reports and attendance at monthly regional management meetings and quarterly store meetings with General Managers
• Monitor, challenge and control costs across the business; proactively identifying saving opportunities and ensuring performance in line with budget
• Materially contributing in the preparation of budgets, reforecasts and weekly outlooks to manage the cost base, understand risks and monitor the impact on full year projections
• Review and provide commentary on month-end cost performance to support the Regional Managers and wider finance team with understanding and controlling cost variances vs budget
• Continuous review of processes and reporting to improve the efficiency of tasks, including the development of new reports
• Support the professional development of the Finance Analysts through mentoring
• Assist with ad hoc reporting and analysis of management information as may be required
• Train and mentor team members
• Provide oversight to team, managing day-to-day issues and concerns, coaching and developing all team members, driving performance and deliver of the company goals through inhouse tools and ensuring all managed within company policy, procedures and processes
• Takes the lead in creating a great place to work for everyone; creates a positive and engaged team through recognition, fun and inspiring others to achieve
• An effective coach with the ability to provide direct, honest and constructive feedback

The individual

• Qualified accountant
• Excellent organisation skills with strong attention to detail
• Highly numerate
• Proactive
• Focussed on getting things right
• Strong planning, prioritisation, presentation and problem-solving skills
• Comfortable managing multiple tasks with tight deadlines
• Strong interpersonal skills, building strong relationships across the business
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Understands financial control environment and processes whilst also having a high level of commercial acumen
• Excellent data manipulation and analysing skills
• Comfortable dealing with non-financial people to drive understanding and management

Remuneration

• Attractive package commensurate with background and experience required for the role.

What to do Next

• To find out more on remuneration, the role or to see a full Position Profile, please contact their retained advisor, William Dodds at Rutherford Cross by emailing [email protected]

Please note that any direct or third party approaches will be sent to Rutherford Cross for review and assessment.