Guardian Jobs 2023 – Finance Transformation

About the job

PWC

In Deals we solve the important problems that stand in the way of value being created, sustained, realised or protected for our clients – working together to aid responsible recovery and growth.

Working on iconic deals with national and global clients, we put together major mergers and acquisitions and resolve business crises – from international take-over bids to financial crime investigations and cases of insolvency.

We draw upon our deals experience across many industries to support and partner with our clients, to positively impact society and the communities in which we operate.

Who We’re Looking For

We are currently growing our Working Capital optimisation team and are looking for experienced hires to join us. Practical experience of managing finance transformation and working capital improvement projects is a must with a particular emphasis on the Credit & Collections process.

We are looking for people who are passionate about what they do and are able to transfer their knowledge, skills and enthusiasm to help develop the wider team.

Our approach typically involves working closely with clients to diagnose pain points across people, process and technology, design sustainable solutions and implement them, usually under tight time constraints. A key focus on any assignment is transferring skills and knowledge to clients so that the solution is embedded and owned by them. Advisory experience is therefore welcome (but not essential).

London is the base location, although there may be a business need to work at client sites.

About The Role

We’re looking for a Senior Associate / Manager (depending on experience) to join the team in London. We’d expect candidates to be willing to work across sectors, developing expertise across all aspects of working capital management.

You would be expected to focus mainly on working capital improvement (particularly in relation to the finance function – accounts receivable and accounts payable), building on your previous experience and expertise to help clients achieve greater process efficiency and effectiveness. We work with clients in a number of different settings ranging from rapid cash realisation to longer longer term transformation, we also help our clients operate and run aspects of their credit & collections processes. Furthermore, you may be required to work on any of the broader project types that we undertake, for example in inventory optimisation and operational restructuring. A typical assignment may include some or all of the following:

• Review of working capital cycles in a business, and (often rapid) diagnostic of key issues
• Rapidly understand key business processes and working capital requirements
• Analysing large data sets, performing financial analysis of opportunities for working capital reduction, within context of commercial requirements of business
• Development of practical action plans to address working capital opportunities
• Working alongside management to implement and support project plans
• Post implementation reviews and monitoring of performance improvement
• Assessment of capabilities of operational and management teams within an organisation and identification of skill gaps
• Process as-is assessment and future state design
• Operating model as-is assessment and future state design
• Systems – working with clients to define and capture business requirements
• Systems – interaction with system integration providers to translate business requirements into system specifications
• Systems – implementation management – PMO, testing, adoption
• Tracking and evaluation of working capital performance
• Preparation of presentations and/or reports to key stakeholders (e.g. Board level/management)
• Active contribution to the team’s marketing efforts (both internal and external) is expected and encouraged. This ranges from preparing marketing material through to organising marketing events or joining one of the internal Channels to take our message to other parts of the firm
• Company, sector and market research and analysis using a wide variety of information sources

Requirements

• An excellent academic record, educated to at least degree level
• Additional professional qualification beneficial (but not necessary)
• Membership of professional institute (e.g. CICM) beneficial (but not necessary)
• Sound financial analysis (including data preparation, aggregation, visualisation and interpretation)
• Strong Excel skills essential and developing knowledge of more advanced solutions welcomed (e.g. Alteryx, Tableau, Power BI, Celonis, SQL, Python)
• Strong commercial awareness and business analysis skills
• Strong interpersonal skills and comfortable communicating with all levels
• Experience of leading large credit control / collections optimisation and/or operational teams
• Experience of specific credit & collections technology solutions
• Experience of managing working capital improvement / cost reduction programmes
• Experience of a range of sectors or specific expertise in a broad market sector
• Preferably previous experience in or exposure to complex stakeholder environments (with stakeholders such as Sales, Operations, Credit Control etc.)
• Ability to manage and motivate others, where required in the role
• Flexibility in terms of diverse industries and role
• Willingness to participate in marketing and business development, demonstrating a proactive approach to the marketplace
• Business case development skills
• Proven project and time management skills
• Ability to work to tight deadlines
• Excellent verbal and written English
• Other languages beneficial (but not necessary)

We would welcome applications from individuals who have a keen interest and knowledge in regard to the work we undertake. We need someone who is able to bring experience and a new outlook to the Team.

You should be enthusiastic and willing to develop the team by sharing the benefit of your experience, whilst also seeking out new opportunities for applying your experience and developing new skill sets.

Deals

Our Deals business is an exciting, fast-paced and an ever-growing business that focuses on deals and crisis situations for our clients. Collectively, we deal with the types of situations you hear about regularly in the news and we provide support, insight and analysis to the management, shareholders and financiers of business.

Not the role for you?

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The Skills We Look For

The PwC Professional is our global framework for defining and encouraging leadership at all levels. Learn more.

The Deal

‘The Deal’, our firmwide Employee Value Proposition’ empowers our people to be the best they can be. Learn more.

Our commitment to you

We’re committed to building a culture that empowers all of our people to thrive and feel a sense of belonging at PwC. Learn more.

Application support

If you’re a person with a disability, if you’re neurodivergent, or if you have a condition that you believe may affect your performance during our selection process, we’ll be happy to make reasonable adjustments to our processes for you. Learn more.