Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services
Graduate job London (Greater London) Accounting / Management control
Job description
Role Purpose
· HOST is HSBC’s Technology and Services division supporting the Global Businesses and Global Functions and currently has a cost base of c. USD 12bn and an employee base of ~85K.
· HOST comprises of: IT, Operations, Corporate Real Estate, Procurement and the COO office.
· HOST is about to embark on the next phase of its globalization and transformation programme. This will not only involve the implementation of a new organization model, which HOST Finance will need to support, but will also require a significant step-up in the quality of insight provided by HOST Finance, including improving transparency with respect to the HOST cost base, and advising the businesses to influence drivers / cost levers.
· As such there is a requirement for HOST Finance to reposition itself to ensure that it is able to meet the increased expectations of HOST, the Global Businesses and Global Functions, and to evolve into a truly global and commercial finance team.
Overview
· The CFO Corporate Services is a newly created role established to bring together the finance business partnering and support for the Corporate Real Estate (CRE) and Procurement functions, in addition to the COO office.
· This is a high profile global role and a key, senior member of the HOST Finance management team as well as sitting on the Excos of CRE, Procurement and the COO office. As such it will provide the jobholder with an excellent opportunity to develop and grow this important role within both the wider HOST organization and across Global Finance.
· The role will be responsible for driving financial performance management across Corporate Real Estate (cost base of $3.5bn), Procurement ($100 m) and the COO office (currently designated as Support Services with a cost base of c. $300m).
· The jobholder(s) will therefore be required to manage a diverse group of stakeholders and build strong and effective relationships with the Group Head CRE, Chief Procurement Officer and the Head of the GCOO office, and their respective teams.
· The role requires an ability to balance business partnering, providing financial insight and advice, and at the same time constructive challenge and an independent perspective.
· A key deliverable will be to ensure that services are priced and delivered on a commercial basis in line with industry best-practice, providing increased transparency to the global businesses and functions with regards to the drivers of pricing and the consumption of services.
· The jobholder will also be expected to play a leadership role in driving a significant reduction in third party spend across the group (c$14bn P&L per annum), as we accelerate the implementation of the Procurement transformation programme supported by Project Velocity.
· The CFO will also be responsible for defining and developing a world-class finance team to support the global Corporate Services organization, implementing global standards of financial management and control across all geographies, and leveraging centres of excellence where appropriate.
· The jobholder will work closely with the other Functional HOST Finance leads and play a leadership role in evolving the HOST Finance function more broadly.
· The CFO Corporate Services will play a key role in ensuring the success of the HOST Financial Management transformation programme (Project Velocity), supporting the CFO HOST.
Principal Accountabilities: Key activities and decision making areas
Impact on the Business
· Lead the development / implementation of the strategies for the CRE and Procurement functions from a financial management perspective, ensuring that robust business cases are developed and approved by the Cost & Investment Board aligned with the wider HOST transformation programme
· Drive the development of a dynamic CRE cost model defining building by building costs, impact of inflation, lease renewals and depreciation of fixtures & fittings; realign charging mechanisms to meet industry best practice and provide increased transparency
· Lead the development of financial analytics and tracking to support the delivery of an $800m reduction in third party spend across the group’s $14bn cost base, supporting the CPO to identify cost reduction / vendor consolidation opportunities and working with the relevant business COOs and CFOs to ensure cost saves are delivered to the bottom line
· Define and implement a strategy for effectively managing the Run the Bank (RTB) and Change the Bank (CTB) cost base across Corporate Services
· Develop the financial (and non-financial) metrics required to support the new organisation, leveraging industry best practice from both within Financial Services but also across the outsourced Services sector
· Define, approve and manage financial targets for all Corporate Services functions in line with the annual planning process, ensuring that all functions deliver within plan
· Lead on the provision of insightful commercially-driven analytics for Global CRE, Procurement and COO Office, and appraise senior management of status, risks and issues
· Improve the relevance of Corporate Services recharges to support business decision-making and the understanding of cost drivers, increasing transparency and the credibility of financial MI
· Support the implementation of the HOST FM, Corporate Real Estate and Procurement Transformation Strategies collaborating with Technology & the GFA teams as required; identify and implement creative re-engineering opportunities utilising Lean Six Sigma as appropriate
· Play a leadership role in driving one of the HOST Finance change programme workstreams to implement outcomes supporting the HOST Finance and Corporate Services future state strategies
· Lead the CRE input to the annual business Strategy process working with the CFO HOST, aligning with the Global Businesses and RBWM in particular, & liaising with Group Strategy as required
· Drive the implementation of an improved operating model for Corporate Services Finance, ensuring alignment and a ‘joined-up’ approach across the all legal entity Finance teams and the wider HOST Finance team.
· Lead the development of CRE and Procurement Services Pricing in line with regulatory requirements, working closely with Global Tax to ensure transfer pricing and other tax related issues are managed in a controlled and efficient manner.
· Drive a robust process for the approval and tracking of MACS / additional space requirements as a result of increased business demand and/or migrations, managing tightly any boundary changes from the Global Businesses and Functions, and ensuring onshore benefits are delivered.
Customers / Stakeholders
· Build and ensure strong relationships with key stakeholders and team members, adopting a joined up approach, to execute change at pace with minimum conflict
· Analyse stakeholder goals and effectively manage their expectations, addressing any misalignment
· Maintain contact with customer, suppliers etc. to identify and communicate status, progress, risks and issues
· Manage and negotiate policy decisions and business solutions so that key stakeholders are bought into decisions that optimise effectiveness for HSBC
Leadership & Teamwork
· As a member of the HOST Finance leadership team, contribute to the development of a high calibre and high performing team, ensuring excellent engagement and motivation levels
· Define and implement a global finance functional model to support the new Corporate Services organization, combining existing support to CRE, Procurement and the Support Services functions
· Identify, develop and retain talent, ensuring that Corporate Services and wider HOST Finance team build strong commercial finance and business partnering capabilities balanced with robust governance and control
· Support the HOST CFO with recruitment strategy to reduce dependency on external consultants and directly manage a core team (leveraging existing / offshore centres as necessary)
· Use excellent leadership skills to influence a distributed set of stakeholders in order to engage them in delivering against the business / HOST and HOST Finance agendas
Operational Effectiveness & Control
· Identify and implement opportunities for improvements to HOST financial management processes, with a particular focus on improving transparency and relevance to the business
· Ensure report production processes are effective and propose improvements/changes as required
· Compliance with external regulatory requirements, internal control standards and group compliance policy
· Timely implementation of recommendations made by internal/external auditors and external regulators.
Major Challenges (The challenges inherent in the role that require a continual test of the role holder’s abilities)
· Both the HOST organisation and HOST Finance are about to embark upon a period of significant change. The jobholder will be required to deal, and be comfortable with, ambiguity and be flexible / adaptable to the evolving environment, and be ready and willing to challenge the status quo.
· The HOST division supports the entire HSBC group and is one of the largest and most geographically complex internal corporate service organisations. Driving change across HOST, CRE / Procurement and HOST Finance, whilst maintaining business as usual service / support, will pose significant challenges and require an ability to prioritise and manage multiple deliverables
· At any one time HOST and the Global Businesses / Functions may have conflicting needs / requirements; the jobholder will be required to navigate these to gain agreement and consensus where appropriate, and recognize where escalation is required to achieve resolution
· Current HOST financial MI reporting and planning processes are highly manual, largely due to a lack of automation and inadequate tools. Whilst Project Velocity will improve the technology infrastructure, the role will require creative solutions to re-engineer processes and redesign outputs to improve the support provided to the business and the CRE / Procurement functions
· The HOST organization needs to become more commercial and customer-focused, ensuring that services are delivered cost effectively whilst still managing risk appropriately. This will require a mindset change which the CFO will be instrumental in driving.
· The MI provided to support decision-making across the organization, both financial and non-financial will need to evolve to support the future state, including the benchmarking of services with both industry and best-in-class norms
· The Charging and Rate-setting mechanisms across all HOST functions / services requires re-engineering to support increased transparency and to ensure we can support commercially-based ‘arms-length’ charging as the organization model evolves
· Creating capacity to invest in refreshing / upgrading the infrastructure whilst managing cost to meet group CER targets will be challenging; requiring creative solutions to the funding of investment, including driving lower Run the Bank costs, and improved governance of expenditure, business cases and post-implementation reviews
Role Context (The environment & operating conditions of the role including the extent of guidance and authority)
· The jobholder will be required to deputise for the CFO HOST in facing off to the Group COO and his Executive Committee, and to the wider Finance Leadership community.
· The role will become an integral part of the Global CRE, Procurement and COO Office Executive teams and will play a wider leadership role as well as being the authority on the management of all commercial and financial matters
· In addition, the CFO Corporate Services will be required to engage directly with the relevant Global Business and Functions COOs as well as the Finance Leadership community, and to lead HOST Finance global initiatives on behalf of the CFO HOST.
Management of Risk (Operational Risk / FIM requirements)
· The jobholder will also continually reassess the operational risks associated with the role and inherent in the business, taking account of changing economic or market conditions, legal and regulatory requirements, operating procedures and practices, management restructurings, and the impact of new technology.
· This will be achieved by ensuring all actions take account of the likelihood of operational risk occurring.
· Also by addressing any areas of concern in conjunction with line management and/or the appropriate department.
Observation of Internal Controls (Compliance Policy / FIM requirements)
· The jobholder will also adhere to and be able to demonstrate adherence to internal controls. This will be achieved by adherence to all relevant procedures, keeping appropriate records and, where appropriate, by the timely implementation of internal and external audit points, including issues raised by external regulators.
· The jobholder will implement the Group compliance policy by containing compliance risk in liaison with Global Head of Compliance, Global Compliance Officer, Area Compliance Officer or Local Compliance Officer. The term ‘compliance’ embraces all relevant financial services laws, rules and codes with which the business has to comply.
· This will be achieved by adhering to all relevant processes/procedures and by liaising with the Compliance department about new business initiatives at the earliest opportunity. Also and when applicable, by ensuring adequate resources are in place and training is provided, fostering a compliance culture and optimising relations with regulators.
Role Dimensions (e.g. balance sheet size, lending/expenditure limits, size/volume of transactions, budget)
· The role has significant responsibility for driving the efficient management of the Corporate Services cost base (c$4bn), across all HSBC global businesses and global functions, and all legal entities including the Service Companies, the GSCs and the GLTs.
· The role will require significant influencing skills to support successful delivery of role objectives by leveraging the wider HOST Finance team, whilst at the same time building out a global Corporate Services Finance function
· The jobholder will have significant exposure to senior management both within HOST, the Global Business and Finance; as such the jobholder will require a level of gravitas and credibility.
Desired profile
Experience & Education
· Extensive experience in operating at a senior level within complex Services-based organisations with wide geographic coverage
· Subject matter expertise in Corporate Real Estate with some experience of procurement / vendor management an advantage
· Experienced change manager with a track record of delivering organizational change in a dynamic, international environment
· Proven ability to deliver cost efficiencies to the bottom line, through driving productivity and leveraging scale /lower cost locations
· Demonstrable experience of delivering saves through offshoring, and through the support of commercial negotiation with third party suppliers
· Strong interpersonal skills with proven ability of excellent stakeholder management, working effectively across teams and problem solving
· Ability to work effectively under pressure with competing and rapidly changing priorities.
· Ability to develop cohesive working relationships with internal/external stakeholders at all levels of seniority.
· Ability to bring analytical rigour and structure and effective solutions to poorly-defined problems
· Strong communication skills – applicable through multiple channels (written, spoken, workshops, presentations)
· A professional Finance qualification is essential (CIMA/ACA/ACCA)
Leadership capabilities
· Navigating – understanding and translating strategy into own team and aligning directions accordingly
· Aspiring – being ambitious about providing the highest standards of delivery and embedding them in the team
· Driving – setting stretching goals for self and team and delivering them with courage and tenacity
· Mobilising – authentically engaging with team, colleagues and business partners to deliver at pace
· Sustaining
- making considered decisions that protect and enhance HSBC values, reputation and business
We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to creating a diverse environment.
Hiring Manager: Joanna Fielding, CFO HTS, Tel: 44 20 799 11784