About this role

Openreach are recruiting for a Senior Commercial Finance Manager – Partner Management to join any one of our following offices; London, Birmingham or Bristol offering flexible hybrid working.

We need leaders who will size the growth opportunity on offer, to transform the cost base and the way in which we operate to ensure slicker delivery, faster throughput of work on our contracts, a more reliable and predictable delivery on time and a better customer experience for our customers and their customers.

Our mission is to build the best possible network, with the highest quality service, making sure that everyone in Britain can be connected. We work on behalf of more than 590 communications providers like SKY, TalkTalk, Vodafone, and BT, and our fibre broadband network is the biggest in the UK, passing more 27.4 million premises. We’re also the platform for Britain’s thriving digital economy, which is the largest in the G20. 

You'll have the following responsibilities

• Business-partnering with the OR Director of Partner Management & OR Director of Fibre First; acting as a key member of the leadership team & contributing to the strategic direction of the unit.

• Responsible for managing the financial impact of the contracts for third party costs across Openreach c£2bn, for both labour and materials. This includes all contract renewals alongside management of inflight inflationary pressures from the market.

• The role holder will work with the operational team to transform our supplier landscape, to secure national synthetics rate card standardisation, introduce competitive tension to supplier relationships, and put in place governance and controls to align to procurement DOA on contracts.

• The Senior Commercial Finance Manager will be balancing the delivery of service levels with cost of delivery and support the development of future operating frameworks, driving transformation activities to improve efficiency of operations.

• Will operate in a highly complex environment with high risk (potential financial or commercial impact, business unit/LOB level visibility, potential reputational impact)

• Accountable for the financial performance of and business partner to the Managing Director responsible for Openreach’s third party contracts - responsible for providing services to enable the Full Fibre build and other programmes across Openreach.

• The role holder will need to business partner across the business directorate up to and including CEO level. The role holder will need to be an excellent business partner and stakeholder manager, ensuring they can build deep relationships up and down the business. 

• Will have direct people management responsibility for a team of 3 finance professionals

You'll have the following skills & experience

• Significant experience of owning a large, and complex cost base.

• Proven ability to build and maintain strong executive level relationships and/or externally with customers, suppliers and other major bodies including offshore service providers.

• Experience of positively influencing business performance by using data, commentary and analysis to inform decision making.

• Strong team management experience.  Advisor and coach to others both within own team and elsewhere, formulates their operational guidelines or in-depth knowledge and advises on specialist area 

• Financial authority on new business opportunities and investments.  Personally accountable for all business unit costs/revenue performance and business results 

• Drives judicious use of resources to maximise productivity and drive cost efficiency and instrumental in driving expansion of margins 

• Sponsors/guides the planning, facilitation and completion of FD sponsored finance programmes 

• Leads, champions and manages conflicting priorities with ownership of successful delivery of key organisation-wide finance programmes

• Sets agendas, identifies opportunities and promotes the highest standards of best practice and provides insight on finance work area(s) or specialism

• Full qualified accountant

Benefits

• 25 days annual leave (plus bank holidays)

• 15% on target bonus

• Cash / Car allowance 

• Pension scheme

• Private Medical cover

• Share save scheme

• 50% off BT and EE mobile pay monthly or SIM only plans

• Exclusive colleague discounts on our latest and greatest BT broadband packages, including BT Sport and the NOW Entertainment membership, NOW Sport, Cinema and Kids.

We value different perspectives, skills and experiences. Diversity makes sense for us, our customers and our ambitions. We’re creating an inclusive working culture where people from all backgrounds can succeed. That’s why we welcome applications from all parts of the community.