Group Finance Analyst

Job Introduction

The Selfridges Group is comprised of Brown Thomas and Arnotts in Ireland, Holt Renfrew in Canada, Selfridges in the UK and de Bijenkorf in the Netherlands, all of which are successful department stores in their own right. Although part of an overarching group structure, the business has purposefully sought to maintain the individuality of each brand and as such they all have a distinct positioning, in keeping with their local market and the customers that they serve.

The Selfridges Group Central Team is made up of around 40 people whose purpose is to support the businesses in thought leadership, cross-group project management, reporting and governance. Our culture is a dynamic and fast-paced one, and those with a pro-active mind-set, strong communication skills and an international perspective will find Selfridges Group an exciting, challenging and fulfilling organisation in which to work.

The Group Finance team supports the retail businesses in delivery of their results and development of strategic plans through the budget and capital investment processes. The team is responsible for financial performance management and delivery of business intelligence and insight to key stakeholders.

We are looking for a curious individual seeking an early career role that gives you the chance to provide key financial insights and recommendations that will make an impact. We are looking for someone who will support our further growth and succession planning and can partner with our retail finance teams to drive performance. You will also get the chance to assist the Group Finance team more broadly across financial planning, analysis and control functions.
 

A bit about the role

As our new Finance Analyst, you will have responsibility to support the Senior Finance Manager and the wider Group finance team in providing effective financial challenge and support to the retail businesses.

As part of this, you will:

• Support the monthly management accounts process – assess the results, noting drivers of key variances to budget and forecasts, ensuring clear, accurate, relevant and timely information is provided to all stakeholders and provide challenge where appropriate;
• Contribute to the annual budgeting and forecasting process – establishing and communicating budget timelines/milestones with stakeholders and managing the submissions process;
• Assist in the capex approval process and evaluation of performance of strategic investment decisions – compilation of data and tracking of performance of key projects against KPI’s;
• Provide cover to the business insights function as needed, producing weekly, monthly and quarterly business performance reports to the executive team
• Deliver analysis and insights to support senior management in making profit driving decisions;
• Become familiar with and report on KPIs, highlighting risks and opportunities and providing insight and commentary on trade and operating performance;
• Produce reports which are easily understood by non-financial people;
• Make recommendations to improve reporting and analysis;
• Build effective working relationships with stakeholders across the business;
• Deal with queries and requests in a professional manner; and
• Assist the wider team on various ad-hoc requests.

A bit about you

The role will be working closely with a range of stakeholders across various functions and therefore requires an articulate and confident individual who is able to analytically consider data and scenarios and ask insightful questions about what they are seeing. They will help facilitate business decisions through providing insight and recommendations. The role requires an inquisitive individual who is willing to both support and challenge stakeholders where relevant.

• Degree level qualification in a life science, business or other quantitative discipline
• Qualified or Part-Qualified in an accounting designation – CIMA/ACCA/ICAEW or international equivalent
• Sound business knowledge with at least 2 years’ experience in a finance function
• Fast learner with a proactive attitude, bringing innovative thoughts and a natural curiosity to the role
• A balance of excellent analytical, presentation and soft skills
• Talent for presenting information and data in a visually compelling manner that resonates with users
• High level of personal and professional integrity to handle sensitive information discretely
• Works effectively and collaboratively cross-functionally
• Ability to work accurately and to tight deadlines
• Ability to think logically to interrogate and resolve issues
• Good knowledge of Microsoft Office tools, with excel modelling an advantage