Finance Executive

Position:

Finance Executive

Job Description:

The Finance Executive acts as a strategic and commercial finance partner to business leadership, providing financial insight, commercial challenge and decision support to drive sustainable growth, profitability and business performance.
The role combines strong financial expertise with commercial acumen and a deep understanding of the business model, clients, market dynamics and operational drivers. It leads and develops a team of Finance Managers, ensuring that finance partnering across the business moves beyond financial reporting to provide proactive analysis, challenge and commercially focused insight.

Location:

Johannesburg - Adcorp Place

Contract Type:

Permanent

Minimum Requirements:

• Partner with business leadership to translate business strategy and operational priorities into financial and commercial plans.
• Provide forward-looking financial and commercial insight, identifying the key drivers of revenue, margin, profitability, cost, cash flow and working capital.
• Lead, coach and develop Finance Managers, setting clear expectations for high-quality financial management, commercial partnering and decision support across their respective business areas.
• Build the commercial capability of the Finance Managers, enabling them to operate as trusted business partners who challenge assumptions, identify opportunities and influence business decisions.
• Support commercial modelling, client pricing, tenders and deal evaluation, considering profitability, margin, cost-to-serve, risk and working-capital implications.
• Develop and challenge business cases for new clients, products, investments and growth opportunities, including scenario and sensitivity analysis.
• Lead budgeting, forecasting and performance-planning processes, ensuring financial plans are grounded in credible commercial and operational assumptions.
• Analyse actual and forecast performance, identify underlying drivers and ensure Finance Managers partner with operational leaders on corrective actions and performance improvement.
• Develop a strong understanding of the client and commercial environment, including contract economics, pricing models, market dynamics and changing client requirements.
• Identify and drive opportunities for revenue growth, margin improvement, cost optimisation, productivity and operational efficiency.
• Ensure consistent financial governance, controls, reporting quality and compliance across the areas supported by the Finance Manager team.
• Build a high-performing finance partnering capability through coaching, succession planning, capability development and performance management.

Additional Requirements:

NA

Roles and Responsibilities:

Strategic business partnering

• Act as the MD's primary finance counsel on strategy, portfolio choices and capital allocation across the division
• Translate the division's strategy and commitments into a financial plan with clear value drivers, milestones and owners.
• Evaluate new business initiatives, market entries and product offers for suitability, acceptability and feasibility, and make a recommendation rather than present options.
• Represent finance on the divisional leadership team and in Group forums; contribute to Board and Audit Committee material with the MD.

Commercial and pricing leadership

• Own the commercial model for bids and renewals: pricing, margin, working capital and risk, with sign-off authority within delegated limits.
• Partner with sales and account leadership on client profitability reviews, contract renegotiations and the exit or repricing of value-destroying accounts.
• Build and maintain client- and contract-level profitability, cost-to-serve and cash-conversion analytics that the business uses to make decisions.
• Advise on deal structures and their earnings, revenue-recognition and balance-sheet consequences under IFRS.

Performance management, planning and forecasting

• Lead the annual budget, rolling forecast and long-range plan, aligned to the Group calendar and communicated to Group Finance.
• Run monthly performance reviews with the MD and business unit heads: variance drivers, forward risks and opportunities, and corrective actions with owners.
• Design the division's KPI and management-information suite so operational leaders see margin, utilisation, debtor days and payroll cost in time to act.
• Drive cost leadership and productivity initiatives, including the finance-enabled use of automation and AI in reporting and analysis.

Financial stewardship, control and governance

• Ensure accurate, IFRS-compliant monthly, interim and annual reporting for the division and its entities, including offshore operations.
• Maintain a sound internal control environment: payroll and billing integrity, revenue assurance, debtors and working capital, and statutory compliance.
• Own the division's relationship with internal and external audit, Group Tax, Treasury, Procurement and Group Business Services.
• Identify, quantify and manage financial risk exposure in line with Group risk frameworks and policies.

Leadership and capability

• Lead, develop and retain the divisional finance team; raise its capability from transaction processing toward analysis and partnering.
• Build finance literacy across operational and sales leadership so commercial decisions are made with the numbers in the room.
• Model Adcorp values and a culture of accountability, continuous improvement and ethical conduct.