Senior Cost Management Accountant at Absa

Overall Job Purpose:

• Role Specific Purpose: This role requires end-to-end cost control and management and optimization for the business unit. Understand the detailed cost drivers, performance analytics, and provide business with insights to improve CTI and achievement of cost targets, all while reducing financial risk. It involves procurement engagement and specifically supplier performance management.

• The Senior Manager: Finance partners with the CFO and is responsible for end-to-end financial management, including developing forward-thinking analysis, generating management reports, statutory compliance, scaling automated financial processes to crafting financial strategies aligned to business financial health and growth objectives within his/her function of the BU. The Senior Manager: Finance ensures that business makes sound financial decisions.

• The Senior Manager: Finance of the business enables achieving the operational objectives of the business by building an agile finance enablement to transform, to bring stewardship, financial integrity & insights to the current state of the business & its future possibilities to deliver on the new operating model and to achieve the business strategy objectives set by Absa Africa United for RBB. The Senior Manager: Finance co-creates, build and run Finance capabilities required to lead to exponential growth and business effectiveness

Commercial Finance Execution Accountabilities

• Responsible for tactical strategy and the navigation of multiple/complex leadership relevant across his/her function of the BU.

• Leveraging tactical and practice integration, accountable to optimise the function. Co-accountable with CFO and Executive Head for business growth and profitability.

• Ensure that the CFO is appraised of key financial issues that need to be raised with executive leadership to enable integrity and timely management the BU.

• Deliver on our Customer Promise by creating unprecedented, seamless experiences.

• Embrace our distinctive brand aspiration and infuse in business.

• Implementation and creating of global best operating practices.

• Drive continuous process efficiency, financial rigor and controls. Pioneer and implement Finance best practices, digital solutions and effective change enablement. Build a scalable, digitally-led business.

• Drive cost management objectives for function within the BU.

• Contribute to functional strategy, create a shared purpose and identity for function; one family doing what’s ‘best for absa’.

• Adopt an eco-system mandate: (geography, customer, channel and product) of business area.

• Book of work contribution: Partner with leaders on financial decisions and implications of business strategies, investments, trade-offs, efficiency and scale initiatives, including process and systems transformation. Ensure alignment of core business with future business and technology changes and align vendor roadmaps to ensure the achievement thereof.

• Accountable for ensuring an optimal and compliant control environment within business unit that appropriately balances risk appetites and customer demand with the need to grow to achieve the financial ambitions and balance sheet aspirations of RBB.

• Lead all aspects of the core finance processes for RBB Finance (annual planning, forecasting, spend trajectory and reporting), and partner with the business leaders to evaluate the productivity of operations, enable wise resource allocation, and drive intelligent scenario planning.

• Stimulate a leadership context of solid understanding of the markets/segments/customers/products to help drive financial growth, performs product and customer profitability analysis to assist with business decisions. Build capability to partner with business to identify opportunities to utilise relevant solutions to innovate new products and services with the intent of driving customer value and revenue.

• Whenever necessary, participate in negotiations with partners as well as suppliers or contractors within appropriate role scope.

• Foster strong relationships with business units by establishing a customer service culture within the commercial finance team.

• Influence integration of Treasury, Risk, and Finance from a BU perspective.

• Influence the build of a leading global payments hub, where applicable.

• Maintain stewardship and excellence which drives performance and sustainable growth through preservation of financial integrity.

• Leverage BU to help shape society by developing innovative solutions to societal challenges; and expand and augment existing capabilities.

•  Integrate oversight of BCM & cybersecurity strategy for BU into Finance execution.

 Financial Reporting Accountabilities

• Partner with leaders to define, optimize and monitor progress on their strategic agenda, short-term and long-term plans and investments, operational success metrics, efficiencies, risks and mitigations.

• Seek advanced modelling and analysis capability to provided actionable intelligence, beyond data within the function.

• Develop finance narratives and insights driving business; and build pioneering new propositions.

• Ensure appropriate, quality and timeous delivery of accurate financial and non-financial management information to support business objectives and expectations, including appropriate financial and non-financial metrics, valid and insightful comments and packaging the information in a relevant and appropriate manner.

• Deliver reporting reflecting deep commercial, holistic understanding, coherency, clarity, and contextualization. Tell the story with passion and conviction.

• Provide thought-leadership, insight, influence and challenge on evolving stakeholder information requirements and reporting processes to deliver analytics.

• Drive the stakeholder engagement and processes around month-end, year-end and planning cycles across the RBB. Prepare for all cycles in advance and ensure adequate engagement with the relevant finance and BU teams.

• Integrate the production of regular, high quality, standardized financial and non-financial reporting and analytics to Business and Finance.

Accountabilities

• Play to our A-Game culture of Culture of inclusivity, diversity, entrepreneurship, and ownership  

• Integrate Big Data and Advanced Analytics into the core of our business.

• Develop specialized Finance skills to support mergers and acquisitions, and partnership capabilities to drive opportunity.

• Be an enabler of capabilities, talent and service level to fulfil business and functional responsibilities in an innovative efficient manner.

• Regularly engage with the other finance and BU teams regarding the process surrounding demand management, ensuring that adequate controls are in place to ensure effective utilization of the Finance team’s resources.

• Embed the correct governance and control frameworks across the Finance team, as well as for proactively addressing any deficiencies and exceptions.

• Build BU leadership capability by influencing deep understanding of income statement, balance sheet, margin returns, variance analysis, capital and liquidity requirements, revenues, assets, liabilities and capital, expenses, headcount analytics and other key ratios through relevant engagement. Hold BU managers accountable for ensuring adaptability of the changes in external regulatory requirements and business performance outlook.

Role / Person Specification

• CA(SA) OR CIMA preferred.

• 5+ years professional financial management experience

• 5+ years Banking Experience at a management level

• Knowledge and skills:

• Experience in business transformation contexts related to exponential business growth

• Experience in commercial innovation environments

• Broad Finance including strategic, commercial, legal, risk and operational aspects

• Understanding of the financial services sector within a professional business environment

• Knowledge of people change management