Finance Director

What you’ll be responsible for

Working alongside the CEO and CFO, the Director of Finance (FD) is an important member of the Welsh Water Senior Leadership team, overseeing the delivery of the company’s financial plans and advising on the financial aspects of its operations.  As custodian of Welsh Water’s financial control framework, is responsible for driving a strong controls and governance culture.   The FD provides financial guidance to the Executive team and assessing the internal and external context to identify issues that pose a threat to the delivery of the financial plans, together with options to mitigate the impact.

The FD is responsible for all finance-related statutory, regulated and investor reporting.  This person leads a multi-disciplinary department of over 60 people that includes management accounting and business partnering, financial reporting, taxation, compliance and risk, estates and transactional support for payroll and accounts payable.  This person is an outstanding accountant with strong commercial acumen and strategic business insight.

You will be responsible to the Executive for:

• Working with Business Unit leaders to oversee the Investment of £500m-£800m pa in Capital Investment,
• Business partnering with Managing Directors down through the business to deliver cost efficiency,
• Financial Planning and Analysis within the business areas through the Management Accounting function that ensures all areas of the business have detailed and realistic budgets,
• Financial Reporting to Audit Committee and Board including the Annual Report and Accounts to UK Corporate Code standards,
• Maintain and develop modernise Financial Controls while addressing new reporting requirements such as CSRD, EU Taxonomy and IASB’s,
• Deliver and present 5-year financial business plan and other assurance activities to Board,
• Oversee that the Business Energy Hedging policy is effectively applied annually,
• Regulatory price control reporting, monitoring and modelling in AMP and for Price Reviews,
• Support Investor relations and work from time to time including covenant monitoring and bond prospectus updates.
• Takes and Company rates optimisation while maintaining the companies ‘low risk’ HMRC status.
• Develop an effective finance system and processes working the Technology team S4Hana business lead for implementing the new system and generating value from the programme.
• Oversee an Estates team of 14 Estates that manage the companies 89,000 acre estate and gains access to new sites in order to maintain and develop our asset base.
• Develop the necessary team skills and dynamics to operate effectively and address the changing nature of the sector

Who you’ll work with

Internal

• Chief Executive Officer
• Chief Financial Officer
• Strategy and Regulation Director
• Treasury Manager
• Dwr Cymru Executive team (DCE)
• Chair of Audit and Risk Committee
• Audit and Risk Committee members
• Glas Cymru Boad
• Heads of Service
• Finance and Estates teams

External

• External auditors and regulatory reporter
• Investors, banking advisors and credit rating agencies
   

About you

The following qualifications, experience, knowledge & skills are deemed essential:

Qualifications

• Qualified accountant with a recognised UK qualifications (ACA, ACCA, CIMA)

Experience

• Implementing, developing, or continuous improvement of a business partnering finance team in a complex multi-service organisation.
• Preparation (or auditing) IFRS statutory accounts for public interest organisations. 
• Managing a large team of finance professionals within a services or an industrial business ideally with contracting experience
• User of corporate finance systems (e.g. SAP, Oracle) - Desirable
• Presenting to corporate/ executive/board / customer meetings

Knowledge & Skills

• Strategic thinking - able to provide a clear and plausible vision to large teams
• Financial Reporting - a solid grasp of accounting concepts and explain these to a finance and a non-finance teams
• Analytical Reasoning – can both interpret and build analytical models to make or explain decisions
• Leadership and Integrity - able to maintain productive relationships in the business always active with integrity and honesty
• Emotional Intelligence – to know how and when to challenge and support teams within a complex stakeholder business
   

Good to know

Benefits

As well as a market competitive salary, 36 days annual leave (pro rata, including public holidays), we offer a range of employee benefits and rewards including:

• Enhanced employer pension contributions – Up to 11% employer contributions
• Car allowance
• Private Health Care
• Free Mortgage Brokering Services 
• Enhanced family friendly policies
• Progression opportunities, including the ability to apply for funded training and coaching and mentoring programmes
• Gym and fitness discounts as well as high street shopping
• Cycle to work scheme
• Discount off all Welsh Water visitor attraction centres and gift shops
• Car-leasing scheme and free on-site parking at all sites
• Health CashBack scheme and access to an online GP service
• An employee assistance programme for employees and their immediate family
• Many more can be found on our website. 

Who we are

Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water keep 3 million people healthy each day with safe, reliable water, and take away wastewater to clean, before returning it safely to our beautiful rivers and seas.

To be able to deliver high quality, essential services which help to protect the health of our customers, colleagues and our environment, we need the right people to deliver on our vision.  This is achieved by living our core values and demonstrating the core behaviours that underpin them.  The security of our people, assets and information is key to us, so we are looking for people who understand and comply with the company’s required security objectives.

We know that the most successful teams are the most diverse teams. Equality, diversity and inclusion provide the very foundation to our culture at Welsh Water. We want every individual to feel confident, proud and able to bring their whole selves to work. 

To ensure an improved representation in our workforce, applications are particularly welcome from minority groups including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people, Females, LGBT+, Non-binary and people with disabilities. Together we continue to build a workplace that not only celebrates the diverse voices of our colleagues but also represents each customer we serve.

In essence, ours is a company based on trust, openness, respect, commitment and honesty. A company that our colleagues are proud to work for.

INDHP