Finance Business Partnering Senior Associate

PwC's Business Partnering teams work hand-in-hand with our employees across the business, informing our leaders on the key decisions that drive the business forward, and shape their engagements. We entrust our Business Partnering teams to be proactive and honest, to build relationships and influence, to understand, challenge, and hold a mirror to the business, and to translate the numbers into a business story. To facilitate our exciting growth, PwC is evolving to future-proof our Business Partnering teams. To empower our people to focus more on insight, collaboration, and commerciality, we are placing new specialised lead roles within our Business Partnering teams, and refocusing the efforts of our core business partners. This refocusing is being accompanied by a renewed investment in technologies to drive our ways of working forward, freeing up time to let our people focus more on providing insights to people in the business, driving our growth agenda, and working together to solve complex challenges. We have invested in our Business Partnering career development framework for our associates and Senior Associates - a renewed way of working to provide our people with a breadth and depth of experience across Finance capabilities, and the opportunity to identify and develop in their areas of strength and interest, whilst still getting a full picture of the value Finance adds across the firm. Our framework means our teams can flex their capabilities to meet the various periodic demands of our Business Partnering team, gaining a wide perspective of the business in the process. PwC's career pathways and career development framework works with our associates to help them develop and visualise their future careers, as they are exposed to more responsibilities within Finance.
The Finance Senior Associate within the Business Partnering Team is a key support for general Finance and business decision support. Working closely with the Finance Managers to produce the financial insights needed by our business, and taking increased leadership over work with experience, this is a collaborative, diverse and engaging role, and a vital function to the firm.
Our Finance teams are an integral part of each area of the business, working closely with leaders to help drive business performance, identify and drive financial improvements, prepare plans and budgets, and report on the performance of the business - commercially, and functionally. PwC takes a people-first approach to Finance, and empowers its Business Partnering teams to be collaborative and value-adding.
The individual in this role can expect to be exposed to a variety of critical Finance functions, depending on their skills and aspirations. They will also build working relationships with other Business Partnering teams, the Directors of Finance, business leaders, and PwC's Centres of Excellence.
The primary responsibilities and areas the Finance Management Team operates across, which the candidate may gain experience in and choose to further develop, include:
Business strategy and planning
Use business insights and detailed analysis to provide the Business and Finance Leads with support and guidance on P&L management
Provide ad hoc support to the Finance Leader, responsible for sourcing information and providing quality analysis of information
Assist and provide depth of insight to the Leadership team enabling key strategic decision making
Assist with Business revenue & cost forecasting
Demonstrating an understanding of the business issues and applying market, industry and firm knowledge
Budgeting and forecasting
Working with the Strategy & Planning lead and Finance Leaders in assisting to prepare budgets, plans and forecasts.
Assisting with the production of forward looking and insight driven reporting for the business to help the business plan, prepare and manage future performance.
Performance management and commercial oriented solutions
Assistance in interpretation of the monthly financial results and preparation of commentary to the Finance Leader
Monitoring areas of financial performance against Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) held in the financial scorecard, escalating issues where management action is required, with supporting analysis
Work closely with the wider business support teams to develop relationships and understand the strategic imperatives of the business
Financial control and compliance
Assistance with providing Partners with relevant accounting advice from the bid stage to through the life of engagements
Spreading local financial risk knowledge to the Financial Control centre of excellence and supporting the central team with complex queries that require local business insight
Providing local intelligence to the Financial Control centre of excellence in line with agreed guidelines
Complex Engagement Support
Undertake revenue recognition, forecasting, performance variancing activities as required by engagements.
Proactively highlight risks and opportunities to financial performance and develop actions to mitigate, correct or exploit as appropriate with senior decision makers
Essential skills & experience
An intent towards a relevant finance qualification such as CA, ACA, CIMA or ACCA
Commercially minded with a deep business understanding
Able to demonstrate application of accounting standards, including IFRS 15
Strong analytical and problem solving skills with good attention to detail
Action orientated and a self-starter
Focused on continuous improvement in all areas of their work
A strong relationship builder who builds trust in their key stakeholders
Strong written and verbal communication skills
Intermediate to advanced excel
Technology enabled mindset and able to identify and drive change through technology adoption
Commercially minded with a desire to develop a strong business understanding
A strong relationship builder who builds trust with their key and senior stakeholders
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with good attention to detail