Finance Manager - FP&A

Condé Nast is a global media company, home to iconic brands including Vogue, GQ, Glamour, AD, Vanity Fair and Wired, among many others. Our award-winning content reaches 84 million consumers in print, 367 million in digital and 379 million across social platforms, and generates more than 1 billion video views each month.

We are headquartered in London and New York, and operate in 31 markets worldwide, including China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico & Latin America, Spain, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S., with local licence partners across the globe.

Position Overview 

The Manager, Financial Reporting will be responsible for supporting the successful execution of the strategic vision of our newly created Reporting Centre of Excellence (CoE), playing a key role in establishing new pillars within the CoE. The successful candidate will manage the Pillar, oversee a smooth  transitional period and ensure the provision of high-quality, accurate, and timely reporting. In addition, the Manager will drive standardization of our reporting processes, and continuous improvement in data, reporting and analytics as we seek to further scale up the team and build its capability. 

The activities to be transferred / are transferred to the Pillar include month-end reporting and planning (Budget and in-year forecasts) with a focus on Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) and Operating Expenses (OPEX). The Manager will collaborate closely with the Functional Business Partnering (based across the globe) and the Corporate FP&A teams (based in UK and US) to ensure services are delivered according to agreed standards and in line with business needs. 

Key responsibilities include:

Service Delivery

• Overall responsibility for Team performance, ensuring that all reporting produced by the team is delivered in line with Service Level Agreements, including:

  • Prepare standardized month-end reporting and presentation decks that combine actual and planned results and prepare ‘first pass’ variance analysis. 

  • Prepare templates and support the consolidation of Budgets and Forecasts, providing ‘first pass’ analysis of variance to targets.  

  • Report and analyse Revenue, COGS and OPEX at a functional and market level.

  • Work with Controlling Ops team and end users to ensure coding accuracy on invoicing at source

  • Support the preparation of monthly KPIs, gathering data from various sources

  • Perform Ad hoc analysis as required.

• Assist in the development of the Service Level Agreements for activities performed by the Pillar

• Ensure that knowledge transfer and transition activity is completed on time and at a sufficient standard, ensuring all Statement of Procedures (SOPs) are updated and agreed with the business for any changes

• Reviews key outputs from team, ensuring high quality and standards of accuracy and presentation are upheld, before handing off to onshore teams 

• Tracks and monitors Pillar performance based on agreed key performance metrics,  course-correcting as and when required. 

• Ensure issues are resolved in a timely and satisfactory way.

• In partnership with Corporate FP&A and Functional Business Partnering team (and in line with change management matrix), review and approve new reporting requests

Stakeholder Relationship Management

• Establish and maintain effective working relationships with key stakeholders in the Functional Business Partnering team located primarily in US and UK, building a deep understanding of the businesses being supported

• Key point of contact for teams supported by the Pillar, acting as an escalation point if there are any delivery issues. 

• Ensuring Regular touchpoints (Weekly/Monthly) with the key stakeholders to review service delivery levels.

• Establish close working relationships with the Bangalore Controlling Ops team to ensure that the hand off points are clearly identified and that processes are in place to ensure month-end reporting timelines are achieved

Continuous Improvement 

• Work as part of the COE Management team to identify, design, and implement opportunities to drive efficiency and standardisation across key processes (including month-end reporting, budget and forecast, and other outputs)  leveraging automation as well as streamlining and eliminating unnecessary activities

• Lead the transition of further activities into the COE team when processes are sufficiently stabilised 

• Stay abreast of industry trends and advancements in reporting technologies and methodologies, with a view to driving operational efficiencies and best practices to improve reporting standards. 

• Work with Corporate FP&A and the EPM/Workday teams to drive standardisation and consistency in global reporting

 Team Management 

• Manage, coach and develop a team and take responsibility to on-board new hires

• Work with the Head of COE and other Pillar Managers to build and develop a high-performing, highly engaged team that understands their purpose and value to the global organisation

• Overall responsibility for allocating tasks across the team members,  managing resource effectively to meet demands across the team 

ESSENTIAL SKILLS & REQUIREMENTS 

• Finance professional with 8 to 10 years of experience in a team handling role with a proven track record of managing offshore teams.

• Education: MBA (Finance) preferred.

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills (both written and spoken), adept at building relationships with stakeholders including senior Finance team members

• Experience of being involved in setting-up and scaling an offshore centre of excellence.

• Establishing governance frameworks.

• Ability to thrive in a matrix organisational environment

• Cultural awareness and ability to work well in an international environment with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures

• Knowledge, and extensive experience of reporting tools and technologies (e.g. EPM, Workday)

• Awareness of advanced data analytics techniques and tools is desirable  

• Results-oriented, with the ability to drive continuous improvement in processes, systems and reporting 

• Ability to present financial information in a succinct and compelling manner, but is also across the detail 

• Team management capabilities - ability to mentor and develop their people along with creating effective backups to mitigate attrition risks.

• Ideally, experience of working with Revenue, COGS and Gross Profit reporting and trend analysis