Associate Director - Financial Planning & Analysis - Banking & Finance

Role description: Finance - Business Analysis - Associate Director

The opportunity:

As an Associate Director within Finance Business Analysis, you will act as a critical finance partner to senior Finance Leaders. You will bring together FP&A discipline, commercial interpretation and performance insight to help leaders understand what is driving results, where risks and opportunities are emerging, and what actions will improve business outcomes.

We are looking for a proactive, credible and insight-led finance professional who can translate financial, operational and market data into clear leadership narratives and practical recommendations. You will bring the discipline, judgement and curiosity needed to support planning and forecasting cycles, strengthen management information, identify performance trends, and shape timely, evidence-based decisions.

Your key responsibilities:

- Act as a trusted finance partner and first point of contact for assigned Service Line, Markets or CBS leadership teams, providing insight that connects financial results to commercial, operational and strategic performance drivers.

- Deliver high-quality weekly, monthly and quarterly performance reporting and insights, ensuring outputs are accurate, concise, action-oriented and focused on the decisions leadership needs to make.

- Support planning, forecasting and budgeting cycles by translating business strategy, market context and operational assumptions into robust financial plans and practical performance targets.

- Analyse revenue, margin, cost, pipeline, backlog, wins, losses, utilisation and productivity trends to surface the risks, opportunities and corrective actions that matter most.

- Provide scenario modelling and option analysis to support leadership decisions, clearly setting out assumptions, sensitivities, trade-offs, risks and recommended courses of action.

- Partner with Finance Colleagues to improve reporting solutions, automate routine outputs, strengthen data quality and increase the usability of management information.

- Prepare and contribute to leadership presentations and performance reviews, using clear storytelling to turn complex financial and operational data into decision-ready insight.

- Respond to ad hoc leadership requests with practical, commercially relevant analysis that balances pace, accuracy and judgement.

- Identify recurring performance themes, process gaps and data quality issues, recommending improvements and supporting implementation of agreed actions across Finance and the business.

- Coach and support junior colleagues and peers by sharing knowledge, modelling strong business partnering behaviours and contributing to a higher-performing finance capability.

Skills and attributes for success:

Success in this role requires a commercially minded finance professional who can turn complex financial, operational and market data into clear insight, practical recommendations and confident leadership conversations.

- Strong FP&A, financial analysis and performance management capability, with the ability to connect results to business drivers, risks and opportunities.

- Executive communication skills, with the ability to translate complex data into clear narratives, concise commentary and decision-ready presentations.

- Commercial curiosity and judgement to understand market context, service line priorities, operational levers and the actions required to improve performance.

- Credibility to engage senior stakeholders, challenge constructively and influence through evidence-based insight.

- Strong technical capability across modelling, reporting and analytical tools, with a mindset for automation, simplification and continuous improvement.

- Comfort operating in a fast-paced, matrixed and global environment, managing ambiguity, competing priorities and diverse stakeholder needs.

- Collaborative, ownership-led style, with the ability to build trusted relationships across Finance, Reporting CoE, GDS and business leadership teams.

To qualify for the role, you must have:

- Graduate degree in Finance, Accounting, Business, Economics or a related discipline and preferably a relevant professional qualification.

- Minimum of 10+ years of relevant experience in FP&A, business analysis, commercial finance, management reporting or finance business partnering within a complex organisation working with senior business stakeholders.

- Proven ability to deliver performance reporting, planning support, financial analysis and stakeholder-ready commentary that informs business decisions.

- Experience working directly with senior stakeholders and cross-functional teams, with evidence of influencing through insight, judgement and commercial understanding.

- Strong spoken and written English, with the ability to communicate complex financial matters clearly, professionally and with impact.

Role summary table:

- Role positioning: Insight-led finance partner to senior leadership. Clearer strategic value proposition.

- Business partnering: Trusted adviser to Finance, Service Line, Markets and CBS leaders. More senior, leadership-facing role.

- Performance and planning: Connects plans, forecasts and results to business decisions. More commercial and forward-looking.

- Commercial drivers: Broadens insight across revenue, margin, cost, utilisation and productivity. Sharper view of what drives performance.

- Decision support: Frames assumptions, trade-offs, risks and recommendations. More decision-ready and action-oriented.

- Reporting and data: Improves reporting, automation, usability and data quality. Adds efficiency and transformation lens.

- Executive communication: Builds concise leadership narratives and recommendations. Stronger executive impact.

- Capability and ways of working: FP&A depth, judgement, influence, coaching and matrix working. Stronger finance partner capability.

- Level calibration: Elevated Senior Associate Director profile without Director-level accountability. Higher impact without over-scoping.