Group Finance Systems Manager – Weir Group PLC
Weir Group Plc
Published
August 18, 2021
Location
Glasgow, United Kingdom
Job Type
Region
Scotland:, - Glasgow
Sector
Industry and Commerce
Specialism
Financial Leadership and Control

Description

The Weir Group PLC (Weir) is a FTSE 100 global engineering business headquartered in Glasgow. Celebrating its 150th year the company’s global footprint spans more than 60 countries and employs more than 11,000 people.

Significant growth and restructuring both operationally and in terms of its geographical footprint, culminating in the agreed sale of the Oil & Gas division, has enabled the Group’s transformation into a focused premium mining technology business through its Weir Minerals and Weir ESCO divisions. Weir has developed clear strategic initiatives centred around safety, employee satisfaction, inclusion and diversity, and sustainability as well as operational growth.

Weir has reported continually strong revenue and profit growth in recent years. In 2020 the Group reported revenue of £2bn and profit before tax of £255m. These are highly impressive results, especially during an extended period of general economic uncertainty, with Weir well placed to benefit as markets recover. Weir represents a true global success story headquartered in Scotland.

Background to Current Opportunity

The Group Finance Systems Manager is primarily responsible for the maintenance and development of the Group’s core financial consolidation and reporting system, currently based on the IBM Cognos suite of products. The individual will work with Group and global finance teams, senior management and other functions to ensure that the management information is adaptable and flexible to allow responsiveness to the changing needs of the business, as well as complying with statutory regulations and other external reporting requirements.

The Group Finance Systems Manager will report directly to the Group Financial Controller and will identify and prioritise system and process changes with the overall objective of benefitting the business as a whole.  The role will require business partnering to investigate and propose possible solutions and then project manage the overall development, testing, implementation and communication of the agreed changes to a high quality.

The Role:

Key responsibilities and accountabilities are set out below:

  • Acting as principal custodian of the Group's Cognos solution, assuming direct responsibility for:
    • Product development and implementation roadmaps
    • Solution delivery
    • Development
    • Maintenance
    • Change management
    • Data quality through system validations and reconciliation procedures
  • Functional responsibility for:
    • Leadership of the Finance Systems Team (see below)
    • Supporting and managing project teams, as required, for specific items of development
    • Supporting Group Finance in their delivery of monthly, quarterly and annual management reporting and bi-annual external statutory reporting through undertaking system readiness tasks and query resolution
    • Relationship with support partner: issue resolution; understand current product capability, road maps, progress of product developments
    • Cognos licence usage monitoring
    • Administration of the lease accounting system including user access
    • Azure hosting monitoring and cost control
    • Management of the external audit of the system and controls
  • Working with IS&T to assure:
    • Solution quality
    • Vendor management standards
    • Application of optimum change management approaches
    • Availability and performance of the solution Group-wide
    • Licence requirements and compliance
  • Leadership of the Finance Systems Team:
    • Oversight, and involvement as necessary, in technical development work across the Cognos suite
    • Plan/schedule system patches and upgrades as appropriate
    • Manage and communicate change requests subject to capabilities of existing systems
    • Manage incidents presenting options for solutions in a clear and concise way to expedite informed decision making
    • Support and enable system configuration to meet accounting and legal entity requirements, typically as requested by Group Finance, and agreed by the Group Financial Controller
    • Ensure system set-up processes are fully documented and up to date at all times
    • Implement, monitor and report controls across all Cognos modules including user access and bi-annual security audit, authorisations, segregation of duties and data integrity, the latter through proactively ensuring the required validations are in place and are operating effectively

 The Individual:

The successful candidate will be highly experienced in finance systems and people leadership, ideally gained in a similar complex international business environment. The individual will come with experience of building and/or developing financial reporting and consolidation systems and, ideally, be a professionally trained qualified accountant.

A summary of the key candidate requirements are as follows:

Education and/or Experience:

  • Degree educated with a track record of high academic achievement
  • Professional accounting qualification preferred but not essential
  • Experience of building and/or developing financial reporting and consolidation systems; Cognos suite: Controller, TM1 / Planning Analytics, BI / Cognos Analytics preferred
  • Experience of providing professional and platform-based services to a range of end users
  • Understanding of structured software development lifecycle approaches
  • Understanding and/or experience in project management, including business process management, stakeholder engagement and change management
  • Experience of engaging, working with and advising senior stakeholders
  • Experienced and skilled in operating within a global de-centralised/matrix environment
  • Excellent written, verbal and presentational communication skills

Skills:

  • Strong analytical, problem-solving, critical thinking and decision-making skills, using a comprehensive approach with strong attention to detail and accuracy
  • Ability to work independently and develop effective working relationships with employees at all levels and present effectively to stakeholders at a variety of levels
  • Have a proven hands-on attitude, be flexible and adaptable
  • Collaborative with excellent listening skills who builds rapport quickly and uses a consultative and coaching approach to working with business stakeholders.
  • Motivated to continually review and deliver improvements to work processes and develop own skills and knowledge
  • Intellectual curiosity, bringing valuable insight

Remuneration:

In addition to a basic salary up to £65,000 - £75,000 per annum, there is a pension scheme with employer contributions up to 8%, attractive bonus potential and 35 days holiday inclusive of public holiday.

What to do Next:

To find out more or see a full Position Profile, please contact their retained advisor, Mark Lewis 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.

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