Group Financial Business Partner: Growth at The Coca-Cola Company

Job Description    
Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) presents an exciting opportunity for an experienced Group Financial Business Partner: Growth, to join the Group Finance department, and engage with Growth Office functions related in all legal entities in the CCBA group of companies. This role provides financial guidance and expertise and to drive the financial objectives of the Growth Office function. This is a senior level resource in the Finance department who partners with the Growth Office function to drive their financial targets and provide financial support and guidance. The successful applicant will be reporting into the Group Head: Financial Management with a matrix reporting line to the Chief Growth Officer.

This employee forms part of the strategy formulation group in the corporate Growth Office function and they contribute financial strategic advice and guidance. They ensure that the Growth Office function is aligned with the Group financial strategy, and they represent the interests of the Growth Office function in group level financial discussions and decision making.

Coca-Cola Beverages Africa is the largest African Coca-Cola bottler, accounting for 40% of all Coca-Cola volumes on the continent. CCBA is a NARTD market leader in Africa. CCBA has an extensive footprint in Africa, employing over 16.000 employees. CCBA vision is to Refresh Africa every day and make the continent a better place for all, growing successfully as business and creating a better shared future for our people, customers, consumers, communities, planet and shareholders.

The Group Financial Business Partner: Growth Office drives the development and deployment of best practices for financial management in the Growth Office function and they identify benchmarking opportunities to be leveraged to improve business performance. Similar positions in the different countries report via dotted line to this employee and he or she is responsible for driving the capability and competence of the extended team in all geographies.

They are responsible for the generation and implementation of the required governance and control frameworks within the Growth Office function and they ensure that these frameworks meet all stakeholder requirements. The position requires an individual that builds and maintains high value, influencing relationships by providing financial leadership and contributing to decision making to support the Chief Growth Officer and his/ her team, while playing an active role in decision-making on the Group Growth Office Leadership team. They also partner with Country Finance Directors/ Leads, Country Commercial Directors and Group Office Senior Leaders to achieve the financial objectives.

The Group Financial Business Partner: Growth Office takes the lead in sourcing and producing high quality, accurate, timely and compliant financial reports and metrics and they provide CCBA Growth Office function members with strong, integrated analytical insights that supports decision making and enables financial performance. They ensure alignment between the Growth Office group long term and annual financial plans and the financial plans of the Growth Office functions in country. They take responsibility for executing the Growth Office function’s financial plan and goals and they generate solutions and implement work practices that will enable the function to achieve these goals. They also ensure that the CAPEX budget and plans are aligned with the Growth Office financial strategy, and they review and sign-off on Requests for Application (RFAs) for CAPEX from the different markets.

Key Duties & Responsibilities    

• Establishing and maintaining sound relationships with all major role players in the Growth Office function at a group and a country level and meeting regularly with them to understand their financial requirements, concerns, and activities.
• Acting as a trusted financial advisor to the leaders in the Growth Office function.
• Developing a good understanding of the different processes, routines, and components of the Growth Office function.
• Sharing corporate Finance function related decisions, plans and policies with members of the Growth Office function.
• Sharing Growth Office related news, roadmaps and plans with colleagues in the Finance department.
• Using leadership and professional influence to position the Growth Office function’s financial plans and initiatives on the agenda of corporate Finance and country Finance teams.
• Representing the interests of the Growth Office function in financial planning forums and decision making.
• Participating and understanding the facets of the Growth Office short-, medium- and long-term strategy.
• Analyzing the spending trends from previous years and researching industry predictions.
• Creating a fiscal plan to support the Growth Office strategy and preparing motivations for the expenditures.
• Working with counterparts in country to communicate the Group Growth Office financial priorities and objectives and to understand the in-country focus areas.
• Making recommendations on the optimization of Growth Office expenses and propose alternative ideas and strategies to improve Growth Office financial management and expenditure.
• Collaborating with the Growth Office leadership team to identify CAPEX and OPEX budget requirements and collating budgets.
• Receiving and reviewing Requests for Application (RFAs) for CAPEX from in country counterparts and submitting the RFAs to the Technical team for review.
• Co-ordinating the RFA approval and sign-off and providing feedback to the Commercial leadership teams in country.
• Acting as the financial subject matter expert for financial capability building programs.
• Ensuring that Growth Office function financial priorities and plans are included in the relevant financial strategies.
• Ensuring all financial services are assigned and managed by resources in the Group Finance team.
• Ensuring that relevant Growth Office staff understands and uses Group Finance processes, procedures, and systems.
• Performing cost analysis and financial modelling for required scenarios and advising the business accordingly.
• Establishing and implementing the necessary governance framework, measures, and controls to ensure ethical and honest financial management.
• Leading efforts to perform Growth Office (financial) benchmarking for key areas.
• Continually monitoring the Growth Office departmental budgets to ensure budgets are updated and expenditures are allocated and tracked.
• Meeting with department leaders to discuss budgets, create forecasts and discuss budget utilization.
• Regularly reviewing projected expenses and flagging line items that exceed budget allocations.  
• Escalating unplanned expenses to the senior leadership team and Group Finance functions.
• Participating and contributing to annual financial audit processes.
• Coaching and training department managers on aspects of budget and expense management.
• Acting as the matrix reporting line for Commercial Business Partners in CCBA country markets to guide and steer their actions.
• Building the Growth Office Financial practices in the organization by acting as a coach and mentor to in-country counterparts.
• Creating a cadence of regular reporting requirements and communicating an annual plan of financial reports to stakeholders in the Growth Office function. 
• Designing and formulating the various types of reports required and ensuring the creation of templates and dashboards.
• Ensuring the regular and timeous completion of transactions, monthly closing activities and data capturing to enable the compilation of financial reports.
• Producing and collating required reports and dashboards and performing high level analysis on the data to produce predicative insights.
• Preparing and presenting the analytics and reports including raising red flags, making recommendations, and suggesting alternative strategies.
• Answering and dealing with questions from Growth Office leaders, Group Finance colleagues and other senior business stakeholders.

Skills, Experience & Education    
Qualifications:

• The minimum qualification required for this position is a first degree in Business Management, Commerce with a major in accounting and/or Financial Management.
• A further degree or CA qualification will be a strong advantage.

Experience:

• 12 to 14 years’ experience in a corporate finance environment with at least 6 years focused on financial management activities.
• Experience of finance management in a Commercial or FMCG domain will be an advantage.

Closing Date: 11th, March 2022