Finance Function Design Adviser

Relevant redesign experience

Candidates should have led or advised meaningful finance-function change, preferably across businesses with varied operating needs. They need sound reporting and control knowledge alongside the interpersonal ability to resolve territorial disagreements. Evidence of a design that remained effective after implementation matters more than the complexity of the original presentation.

Allocate work where decisions need support

Review the division of work between group, business units and any shared-service arrangements. Map responsibility for forecasting, consolidation, cash management, statutory reporting and commercial analysis. Identify activities that need proximity to operations and those that benefit from consistent central execution. Where a process crosses teams, define the handoff and acceptance criteria rather than assuming collaboration will fill the gap.

Assess the monthly close and planning calendar against actual capacity. Determine whether bottlenecks arise from data quality, unnecessary review layers, unclear policies or missing expertise. Recommendations should account for holiday cover, succession and the consequences of a key individual being unavailable. A model dependent on exceptional effort every month is not a sustainable operating model.

Develop role accountabilities, service expectations and a practical transition sequence. Include control ownership, escalation paths and the information business leaders should receive. Technology recommendations must follow the process diagnosis; changing systems is not a substitute for agreeing definitions or deciding who owns a balance.

The model management will receive

The client should receive a current-state diagnosis, future operating model, capacity implications and an implementation roadmap with dependencies. The adviser may facilitate workshops and test proposed workflows, but management retains authority over appointments, redundancies, systems purchases and policy adoption. Recommendations must distinguish essential control improvements from optional efficiency opportunities, and must explain the service risks of any proposed reduction in finance capacity.