Finance Business Partner - B&W

Job Title: Finance Business Partner – Beauty & Wellbeing
Business Function: Finance
Location: 100VE / Netherlands
Work-Level: 2C

Beauty and Wellbeing Management

Unilever’s Beauty and Wellbeing business now delivers more than €12bn Turnover, consisting out of Skin, Hair care and our Global Business Units Prestige and Wellbeing. We are a world leader in Hair Care and a challenger in Skin Care, and we have been on a journey of systematic change and radical transformation to win in the fast growing (premium) price tiers, formats and channels in the market. We need to deliver growth ahead of Unilever and it is critical we improve gross margin through volume leverage, mix and transformational supply chain savings, so that can continue to invest behind the transformation of our brands.

We are home to 14 out of Unilever’s 30 power brands, and those still make up only 70% of our turnover. We will be dynamic about prioritisation, make ruthless choices and team up to deliver. We have a passion for high performance: we set clear, bold ambitions and we focus on outcomes with impact for our consumers and customers. We play to win: we solve problems, own the solution and are transparent in our decision making.

The role of the Finance Business Partner is to develop and drive the financial strategy & business performance of certain brands and lead cross category projects. The finance business partner may attend Brand Leadership Teams or Category Leadership Teams and will focus on the finance aspects of those agendas. This will include providing Finance Business Partnering leadership in the following areas:
• Commercially shape the medium to long term direction of their respective brands or pillars.
• Dynamic resource allocation to meet Category growth priorities.
• Business case development and benefit realisation for project investments.
• Strategically influence senior stakeholders

The role will business partner at least 1 Global Brand and extended teams across clusters. You will be an “agile” member of the relevant brand Community (attending when relevant) and at times may have to stretch across to other brands and cluster projects within B&W.

Key Interactions
Business partners
Brand Community
GBVP and the direct team of Brand Directors & Managers
Other functions in the Core Global brand team (CMI, Supply chain, R&D)
Finance business partners
Finance Managers and Analysts within B&W
FET team (Category, Local and Supply chain Finance)
Local Finance Managers in key countries

Responsibilities
Strategic Planning
• Partner the GBVP on the strategic planning process
• Partner with Brand Directors in business modelling, P&L forecasts, competitor benchmarking, shadow P&Ls
• Identify value opportunities that require a particular intervention / project support from Finance Business Partner resources and allocate resources as appropriate. Likely to include GM, Pricing, ROMI, market development.
• Review impacts of performance interventions
• Partner with Categories to complete active portfolio reviews
• Identify major risks and opportunities

Innovation
• Develop and lead business cases for BG led innovations, in collaboration with global brand teams, as well as the counterparts across CMI, R&D and supply chain globally and locally.
• Influence key decision gates of innovation and land portfolio strategy.
• Coordinate innovation post launch performance conversation together with innovation champions and BU finance, drive interventions if needed.
• Drive value creation innovation as part of the category innovation process and may also lead GM improvement plans.

Budgeting
• Drive better decision making around resource allocation and budget setting. Support on prioritisation and activation of a ZBB (Zero Based Budgeting) mind-set within the Category and Brand

Cross Category
• Lead various cross-category projects across categories, aimed at stepping up finance capabilities, such as Sustainability Finance, Digital ROMI, etc.

All about you
• Knowledge & Skills
• Communicating and influencing
• Commercial acumen
• Critical Thinking
• Growth mindset and Bias for action
• Accountability and responsibility
• Ability to work collaboratively with other key stakeholders
• Strong negotiation and influencing skills
• Strong team leadership skills

Experience required
• Professional finance qualification equivalent to CA, CIMA, ACCA.
• Relevant years’ experience in financial, operational and business partnering roles preferably within BB, SC or CD.
• Excellent analytical and communication skills with ability to respond under pressure.
• Experience in driving P&L performance improvements (e.g. closing gaps vs. target) and holding others accountable (particularly peers and senior leadership)
• Experience in managing a large and complex set of stakeholders
• Experience of working with and influencing senior leaders