Finance Manager, West Africa at Visa

Job Description And Responsibilities

The Finance Manager is responsible for the financial health of our operations in the West Africa cluster, while being based in Johannesburg SSA Hub Office. This role involves overseeing financial planning, financial analysis, and reporting, managing financial risks, and financial modelling and reviewing of client deals and business cases. The Finance Manager will work closely with the Finance Director based in Nigeria, and report to the SSA Head of Finance, to support West Africa and SSA overall business priorities.

Key Responsibilities:

Financial Management:

• Oversee the month-end, quarter-end, and year-end financial reporting process for the West Africa cluster.
• Manage the budgeting and forecasting process for the West Africa cluster.
• Implement strategies to prevent and resolve bad debts.
• Provide in-depth support in the areas of revenue management and investment decision.
• Participate in continuous improvement activities to meet or exceed internal customers’ expectations.

Revenue Analytics and Business Partnering:

• Lead the analysis of key business drivers for strategic planning, annual budgeting, and quarterly forecasting for the West Africa cluster.
• Actively engage in the modelling and review of client deals, ensuring accuracy and alignment with the company's financial goals and strategies.
• Identify and analyze potential opportunities and risks in client deals, providing actionable insights for decision-making.

Compliance and Governance:

• Ensure deals and approval-to-spend requests are captured, recorded, summarized, and reported in compliance with policies and procedures.
• Ensure data integrity and consistency of information as well as organized documentation of all financial assumptions, results and data sources used.
• Provide advisory and guidance to business partners on deals structuring, of their approved budgets and forecasts, and their commitment to budget/forecast on a continuous basis.

Relationship Management:

• Partner with business and regional teams to ensure alignment on financial performance and the drivers of forecasts and results.
• Demonstrate strong sense of urgency when preparing and evaluating multiple incentive deals, and proactively align priorities with West Africa Cluster Head on a weekly basis.
• Build and maintain relationships with finance business partners in SSA and CEMEA Hub, to ensure they are aware of the latest deals’ timelines, risks/opportunities, and how we plan to quickly mitigate or leverage them respectively.

Critical Success Factors in The Role:

The What:

• Deliver financial excellence and drive business growth in the West Africa cluster.
• Ensure alignment on financial performance and the drivers of forecasts and results.
• Maintain compliance with policies and procedures and reporting requirements.
• Build and maintain relationships with finance business partners in SSA and CEMEA.

Qualifications

Leadership:

• 7-10 years of work experience and a bachelor’s degree or 5 years of work experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g., Masters, MBA).
• Proactive, high-energy, and motivated team player.
• Strong communication skills and creates deep relationships across the business and communicates effectively with executive management.
• Ability to work well under pressure and manage multiple priorities.
• Able to work cross-functionally, geographically, and with virtual teams while promoting a culture of openness, trust, and flexibility.

Technical:

• Degree in Accounting or professional accounting qualification (ACA, ACCA, CPA or equivalent) is preferred.
• Strong FP&A skills: Experience in forecasting based on trends, historical data, current market conditions, and strategic plans. Proficient in developing and managing revenue budgets. Proven ability to analyze financial data and succinctly summarize for non-Finance audience. Experienced in working with financial models.
• Expertise in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint required and experience in Power BI is desirable. IBM Cognos TM1 and Hyperion experience would be an advantage. Conceptual knowledge of financial databases is beneficial.

Business:

• Financial/commercial analysis/FP&A experience from within a large, multi-national, publicly traded corporation.
• Outstanding analytical and quantitative skills, able to resolve tough business problems with well-structured analyses.
• Must be detail-oriented and possess good prioritization skills to ensure relevancy, accuracy, and quality of output.