Global Finance Manager - Overheads Transformation

Job description

Job Title: Global Finance Manager- Overheads Transformation
Location: 100VE, London
Salary: Circa £46-£50k dependent upon experience

Global Cost/ Overheads Team

The Global Cost Control team is responsible for ensuring visibility, accountability and maximum efficiency around overhead costs worth approximately € 7b globally. This team sits at the epicentre of the biggest ‘Change Program' in the recent history of Unilever, which aims at reducing costs by over a billion Euros over the next 2 years. Aside from timely reporting, Forecasting and budgeting of these costs, the biggest agenda for 2018 is to develop incisive analytics, visibility, accountability around costs and enabling the change program initiative through cutting edge technologies. Needless to say, the quantum of bottom line value pegged against overhead costs over the next 2 years makes it one of the most important elements of the financial growth model for Unilever today. This involves engagement and interaction with senior stakeholders, working cross borders with colleagues in the clusters/markets and closely working with outside consultants to explore maximum opportunities.

The Global Cost team today is a highly vibrant and motivated team comprising of top talent from around the world. The team is famously known as ‘Mini United Nations' speaking 17 different languages. The team has a very healthy mix of experiences and backgrounds. This team is designed to provide a motivated candidate a highly sought-after and enjoyable experience of being part of a big transformation journey.

Role Overview:

The role is being offered at a Work Level 2A/2B reporting into the Global Cost Control Director. This role offers exposure of a different magnitude of interactions with cross functional teams across the global and local organizations. It offers exposure to a wide variety of finance topics. It is best placed to offer opportunity to engage and work with the global finance leadership team.

Responsible for delivering on the overheads ambition of +50 bps in 2018. Today, the biggest challenge around Overheads are the lack of visibility of costs by divisions. As the organization is becoming more division/ category centric, this is high time we structure our costs by division to enable visibility and accountability. This requires a radical approach to costs structures whether looking at them from a Division perspective or from a Local/ Global perspective. From a 40:60 ratio of division specific: Non-division specific costs today we need to move to an ideal state of 80:20 costs structure.

Similarly, from a 45:55 ratio of global and local overheads costs split today, we need to develop a glide path of how we can move to a 20:80 global and local cost structure. This requires fundamentally challenging the current structures to ensure we reach the end destination while ensuring maximum cost efficiencies for the overall organization.

This piece of work should unveil the limitations, if any, of the current allocation framework and how we can change that to bring in more refinement into the process to make it future ready in a way that it enables the organization to achieve it's 2020 strategic ambition.

This role offers exposure of a different magnitude of interactions with cross functional teams across the global and local organizations. It offers exposure to a wide variety of finance topics. It is best placed to offer opportunity to engage and work with the global finance leadership team.

Responsibilities:

This is a high visibility role based in London 100Ve HQ. It is important for the candidate to be based in this location as all key business partners are based here:
· Reshaping the current overheads framework to make it Division Specific
· Ensuring the right mix of Global/ Local overheads from a FCCR and Tax perspective
· Using Cost Control Cube to establish best approach to Overheads allocation/ incisive analytics
· Radically changing the approach to Global Costs/ Revolutionizing the statistical cost process

How to apply:

To apply, you must do so online using the “Apply to this job” link below. Your application will be reviewed against our requirements and we will be in touch shortly after the closing date to provide you with an update on the status of your application.

By applying for this vacancy, you are confirming that you have made your Line Manager aware of your application and that you are at a point in your career with Unilever where it is appropriate for you to be applying for other positions.