The Organisation: Heriot-Watt University

Reporting to the Deputy Director of Finance, this role has responsibility for the coordination and management of all aspects of management accounting. This includes leading a team of Finance Business Partners who provide support and challenge to the Schools, Professional Services and overseas campuses.

This support is across the breadth of management accounting disciplines, including:

• Budgeting / financial planning and reforecasting
• Monitoring and reporting
• Financial KPI’s
• Day-to-day support and expertise to the institution’s Senior Officers, Directors and Managers

The role-holder has direct responsibility for the Finance Business Partners and also coordinates some financial activities (e.g., reporting) from the overseas campuses. The successful candidate will be responsible for setting consistent standards of service across the University and for ensuring efficient and effective processes are used, in line with external best practice. Service-wide continuous improvement, as well as staff training / development and performance management, are important elements of the role.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Financial Budgeting and Planning / Forecasts:

• The role-holder and their team will work with Heads of School, Directors and others from the University (Schools, Professional Services and overseas campuses) to build budgets and financial plans from the bottom up, which feed into the overall financial planning process for the University. These plans are reviewed each quarter and the year-end forecast is revised
• The 3-5 year forward financial plans are presented through the University’s Finance Committee to the University Court for approval and are lodged with the Scottish Funding Council. The role-holder has a key role in ensuring those individual plans are consistently and efficiently prepared

Consolidated Monthly Management Reporting:

• The role-holder ensures that appropriate processes are in place for timely financial reporting, through the coordinated collation and production of comprehensive monthly University-wide management accounts
• This reporting comprises Income & Expenditure reporting, Balance Sheet and Cash-flow reporting. It is consolidated from schools, professional services, projects, subsidiary companies and overseas campuses. The role-holder has a vital role to play in ensuring consistency of approach and quality, and in adding value-add commentary detailing the key financial risks and opportunities
• The reporting is primarily aimed at the Deputy Director of Finance, Global Chief Financial Officer (GCFO), University Executive, Heads of Schools, the Finance Committee, the University Court and external agencies. The insightful reporting is of high quality and is tailored, as required, for external stakeholders including the Scottish Funding Council, the University’s auditors and the University’s bankers / bondholders. That reporting also plays a role in the development of the Financial Review within the University’s annual Financial statements

Financial Analysis and Data / KPI’s:

• The role-holder is responsible for the production and interpretation of a wide variety of regular and ad hoc financial data and analysis, including financial KPI’s. This data / analysis is utilised for a number of internal and external purposes including KPI’s for the University Court and external financial reporting

Leadership:

• The role-holder provides leadership for staff and their team. They ensure that all aspects of people management, development and review are in place across the team. They also keep the team’s structure and skillset under review, to ensure that these are appropriate and deliver efficient, effective and consistent working practices and outputs
• The role-holder will play a key part in defining and shaping services of the Finance Function during and post implementation of the ERP, and in ensuring that the aim to achieve consistency in processes in all of their global locations is achieved

Finance Team Management:

• The role-holder is a senior member of the Finance Team and is required to act as a professional role model. They deputise for the Deputy Director of Finance when necessary and therefore may represent the University and its finance team with external parties as required

Relationship Management:

• The role-holder influences and challenges the decision making of senior colleagues by providing professional persuasive financial expertise. They resolve issues and facilitate solutions where disagreement exists across a range of stakeholders
• The role-holder is required to liaise with a broad range of external parties, including internal and external audit functions, funders, taxation and legal advisors and other current and potential partners / suppliers, as required

The role-holder will have frequent interaction with staff at all levels, including:

• University Senior Leadership Team
• GCFO, Deputy Director of Finance
• Heads of Finance on overseas campuses
• Finance Business Partners
• Head of Planning
• Key Finance Office staff (Financial Accountants, Systems Accountants)

Continuous Improvement:

• The role-holder leads delivery improvements for the efficiency and effectiveness of the management accounting processes and controls, but also for the end-to-end processes that these will support. This includes effective KPI reporting, process mapping and responsibility definition and reinforcement
• The role-holder will also be expected to deliver changes to, and embed, processes that support the new ERP system

System and Reporting Improvements:

• The role-holder will identify and design / define system improvements as required. They will also be jointly responsible for effective implementation of any new systems
• The role-holder provides in-house reporting expertise specific to Oracle (new ERP) financial reports and develop new reports to meet future requirements
• They will also provide in-house expertise in the use of reporting tools to meet regular and ad hoc planning reporting requirements of the University

Management of Centrally Held Budgets:

• The role-holder has primary responsibility for the management of centrally held budgets (e.g., Bi-centennial research leaders, James Watt Scholarships, Contingencies, Infrastructure)

Education, Qualifications and Experience:

• Nationally recognised accountancy qualification e.g., CA, ACA, CPFA, CIMA, ACCA
• Qualified to degree standard
• Significant post-qualification financial and management accounting experience within a large, complex organisation
• Managed teams with responsibility for budgeting and strategic planning within a complex environment; as well as having participated in such activities personally
• Developed, reviewed and quality-assured business cases with colleagues and with non-finance professionals, and presented these at senior level
• Proven experience of working as part of a multidisciplinary team, which could be characterised in the University as including both professional services and academic colleagues
• Extensive experience of financial planning and budgeting, constructing consolidated budgets across an entire organisation
• Outstanding and proven analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to make well-considered decisions, resolve conflicts and demonstrate sound, professional judgement
• Demonstrable experience of managing change
• Good track record of developing and maintaining positive working relationships with internal and external customers, peers, stakeholders and others

To ensure you are considered for this role please apply ASAP with your CV and contact details, our experienced consultant will ring you for a confidential discussion.