Lead FP&A Expense Analyst

Job Title: Lead FP&A Expense Analyst

Reporting to: Head of Expense Management & Transformation

Direct Reports: 1

Position Type: Permanent, hybrid working, 3 days minimum in the office per week.

Overview:

Why Tokio Marine HCC?

Standing still is not an option in the current world of Insurance. TMHCC are one of the world’s leading Specialty Insurers. With deep expertise in our chosen lines of business, our unparalleled track record and a solid balance sheet, TMHCC evaluates and manages risk like no one else in the industry. Looking beyond profit, empowering our people and delivering on our commitments are at the core of our customer values, and so is a desire to grow and provide creative and innovative solutions to our clients.

Job Purpose:

Operating within the International Finance Expense FP&A team the purpose of this role is to provide and support expense reporting, planning and analysis, managing and developing cost allocations and recharges across operating units and legal entities providing clear line of sight for business and finance stakeholders.  The creation of this role follows a period of acquisitions and organic business growth, recognizing the need for simplification and standardisation of processes and models. 

This role is an excellent opportunity for someone with good financial acumen together with a strong skillset in finance systems, data management and process to quickly add value, developing a good understanding of the business, with potential for growth within the role.

This position will have responsibility for the following key tasks:

• Production of insightful cost reporting and variance analysis;
• Lead on detailed headcount analysis, along with enhanced control and reporting;
• Manage annual expense budgeting cycle;
• Compensation management, control and analysis;
• Internal expense reporting;
• Leading future improvement and simplification initiatives for cost planning, recharges, reporting and analysis;
• Provide direct line management;
• Perform Internal reporting, decision support and any analysis activities to the highest degree of efficiency and accuracy for any operating expense costs across TMHCC International;
• Supporting the production of actual, budget and planning cost allocations and recharges;
• Build and develop relationships and communication within the business on expenses; and
• Partnering back-office C-Suite members.

Key Responsibilities:

Team Management

• Direct line management for one expense analysts, providing support, guidance and mentoring.
• Carry out performance appraisals, support personal development plans, empower direct reports and take part in the recruitment process.

Reporting, Planning and Analysis

• Production of monthly headcount controls and reconciliations, leading to enhanced and insightful reporting up to C-Suite audience.
• Oversight and control over compensation results, leveraging the information to produce insightful analysis, reporting and strategic adjustments.
• Production of clear and concise expense reporting and variance analysis between reporting time periods, budgets and forecasts.
• Coordinating activities related to the annual operating expense budget – understanding strategic plan, supporting stakeholders during planning period, review and challenge of various inputs from stakeholders and drafting of narratives or commentary and any necessary reporting.
• Develop and produce regular, concise and insightful reporting to business lines and legal entities across headcount, compensation, direct and indirect costs for business and finance users in support of management decision making. 
• Understand & communicate key drivers of operating expenses.
• Support cost and profit centres by providing tools and processes to ensure transparency of actual spend compared to budget / forecast.

Analytical Insights in aid of supporting Business Partnering and Decision Making

• Carry out fast and accurate analysis of, and commentary on, key drivers and parameters related to operating cost expenditure.
• Contribution towards ownership of expense reporting and analytics, creating transparency and insight to support management decision making.
• Support the business partnering team in aid of enhancing commercial insight to Executive Management, Underwriters and Department Heads.
• Develop insightful expense analysis leveraging from BI tools.

Cost Allocations and Recharges

• Support in the production of cost allocations and recharges in month end, annual Corporate budget and forecasting cycles.
• Support in ensuring cost drivers are appropriate, representative, reasonable and aligned with overarching principles..
• Support in ensuring transparency and control of recharges and transfer pricing between legal entities, liaising with tax and legal entity reporting colleagues as required to ensure compliant and business implications understood.
• Support in ensuring allocations are both reasonably accurate whilst being pragmatically efficient through review and challenge.

Internal Reporting

• Lead in conducting operating expense reviews (pre and post close), to identify key movements, understand variances and make recommendations for adjustments if required.
• Investigate and report on queries and actions arising from month end process.
• Ensure that monthly, quarterly and yearly internal reports are produced, reviewed and distributed in compliance with the required deadlines.
• Work closely with other team members to review, improve and deliver a report suite that enables profit and cost centres to efficiently manage expenditure to plan.
• Implement reporting systems using technology for delivery of expense reporting, which is meaningful, increases transparency and produced on a timely basis.
• Continued visualization enhancements through leveraging and enhancing skillsets and tools in aid of articulating insightful expense BI.

Quality Assurance and Review

• Understand and communicate key drivers of operating expenses.
• Responsible for ensuring any policies and procedures are complied with and documented.

Annual Planning

• Responsibility for coordinating all activities related to the annual Corporate budget – understanding strategic plan, supporting stakeholders during planning period, review and challenge of various inputs from stakeholders and ownership of narratives or commentary and any necessary reporting on the overall expense budget.
• Comprehensive understanding and ownership of end to end budget process, functionality and logic within Anaplan.

Process and Systems

• Develop agreed overarching principles and defend the integrity and consistency of a standardized approach, ensuring executive sponsorship and robust challenge of exceptions, (including provision of impact assessments to inform such decisions and appropriate documentation of exceptions thereafter).
• Ensure processes are clearly understood by stakeholders, clearly documented and regularly updated.
• Work with Finance systems and external partners to ensure solutions, users and licenses are effectively managed.
• Ownership of data structure relating to expenses in the PeopleSoft ledger (in association with Group rules).
• Ownership and management over expense accounting policies.
• Establishing robust processes across material expense categories.

Teamwork and Relationship Management

• Responsible for improving visibility of expenses, ensuring the team provide effective analysis and reporting to Finance, Executive Management, and the wider business stakeholders.
• Build strong relationships with stakeholders within and outside Finance across multiple locations, enabling the department to deliver high quality effective support to the rest of the Business.
• Enable communication and collaboration mechanisms across locations to enable common standard working practices to be applied with central oversight.
• Partnering back-office C-Suite members, providing transparency around their headcount and expense base, enabling the opportunity to manage their result and make executive decisions.
• Collaborate with other Finance colleagues in the improvement and management of wider cost reporting, planning and analysis.

Skills and Experience Specification:

Essential

• Experience in cost allocations and recharging for European or multinational corporate and in designing and developing reporting and analysis for senior executives and management.
• Demonstrable experience in delivering change in respect of finance data models, processes and systems.
• CIMA / ACA / ACCA Qualified or equivalent accountant.
• Strong financial acumen.
• Experience in designing and developing reporting and KPI cost dashboards for senior executives and management.
• Advanced Excel skills and strong financial modelling abilities.
• Developed analytical skills including compelling communication of financial information and key metrics/messages relevant to different audiences.
• Highly numerate with excellent attention to detail and accuracy.
• Proven experience in implementing change within Finance.
• Strong data visualisation skills.
• Strong relationship building, communication skills.
• Demonstrable experience working with and supporting business functions and executive management.
• Working within tight timeframes.
• Experience with managing a team.

Desirable

• PeopleSoft experience.
• Experience in insurance, including understanding of reinsurance and commission structures and the impacts of this on operating expenses.
• Business partnering experience and capability.
• Anaplan experience.
• Experience in BI systems such as PowerBI, Tableau.

Soft Skills

• Focus on timely delivery of quality outputs.
• Energy, enthusiasm, persistence, and adaptability.
• Professional approach and delivery of work product.
• Encourage a culture of continuous improvement and ‘end to end’ process thinking.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to influence and lead others.
• Assertive but sensitive to conflicting demands on others.
• Commercially minded, critical thinker with a keen eye for the detail.
• Aptitude to build relationships across finance and the rest of the organization.
• Pro-active in finding and implementing improvements to work processes.
• Willingness to challenge current methods and look for efficiencies.

What We Offer

 The Tokio Marine HCC Group of Companies offers a competitive salary and employee benefit package. We are a successful, dynamic organization experiencing rapid growth and are seeking energetic and confident individuals to join our team of professionals.

The Tokio Marine HCC Group of companies is an equal opportunity employer.  Please visit www.tmhcc.com for more information about our companies.

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