Kantar Looking for Finance Business Partner at New York, NY Full Time

We’re the world’s leading data, insights, and consulting company; we shape the brands of tomorrow by better understanding people everywhere.

Our Insights colleagues are the masters of using data to resolve challenges. They help brands define what they should stand for, how to reinvent and renew their offer, how to better reach audiences, and how to win with consumers and customers. By collecting substantial data from across the world, they blend human expertise with technology, making sure we can deliver innovative insights to brands everywhere.

Finance Business Partners are an integral part of Kantar’s Finance team leading on the delivery on global, divisional, and regional Finance agenda. The role will work with leadership teams to deliver results in line with the business strategies in collaboration with Specialist Finance teams, such as Finance MDs, R2R, FP&A and integrated global Kantar Business Services (KBS).

Finance Business Partner

New York, NYC or Atlanta, GA

Why this job is important

The Finance Business Partner will lead on delivery of Kantar’s global, Divisional and Regional Finance agenda while partnering closely with colleagues across our Communities of Excellence (Corporate Teams) and Global Business Services (Kantar Business Services/KBS). You will work as part of a Business Partnering team delivering world-class finance strategies, insights, solutions and processes to your Business Unit within Kantar.

What you’ll be doing

• Owns the relationship with the Industry, Solution or Unit leader (herein “Business Unit”), acting as a strategic and insightful business partner and serving as the single point of contact for the leadership with Finance
• Takes ownership of the Business Unit annual plan and forecast; develops key financial planning assumptions, working in conjunction with other areas of our organization on the preparation of Business Unit plans
• Takes ownership of the Business Unit planning cycle, ensuring adherence to the Divisional calendar
• Reviews, challenges, and approves Business Unit financial plans prior to Business Unit leader and functional leadership team review
• Evaluates revenue pipeline, order book and drives appropriate improvement interventions to maximise revenue (pricing) and contribution margin, ensuring such interventions are factored into the forecasts and annual plan
• Supports C&A on monthly close process identifying outliers versus expectations
• Collaborates with HR Business Partner on workforce planning to ensure delivery of forecasted revenue and direct expenses
• Drive and enhance business performance by providing strategic, financial and commercial decision support; providing interpretation, analysis and recommendations to facilitate BU leadership decision-making
• Provides monthly insights on performance vs. Forecast, Annual Plan and Year over Year drivers for the Business Unit
• Acts as a first point of contact for strategic finance support for North America business
• Serve as a valuable business partner and key advisor in providing insight, support and challenge to commercial decisions based on robust analysis
• Takes ownership of initiatives, ensuring commercial impact and benefits are tracked through to delivery
• Reviews financial outputs from systems & supporting teams to ensure integrity and accuracy of business results
• Ensures standard business performance reports meet Business Unit needs and provide ad-hoc analysis only as required
• Assist in the preparation and tracking of business cases for capex and opex
• Supports internal and external audit activity through the provision of qualitative inputs and providing commentary as required
• Accountable for the operation of local controls in accordance with the Group Controls policy

The skills & experience needed

To succeed in this role, you’ll have:

• BSc/BA in accounting, finance or relevant field
• Member of a professional accounting body (e.g. CIMA, ACCA, ACA, OROC, OCC or equivalent) or MBA
• Demonstrated experience and success across finance planning, budgeting, forecasting and management reporting
• Demonstrates an understanding of the internal and external factors which drive business performance
• Capital investment case preparation and appraisal
• Experience working in a global environment, data driven and matrixed organisation
• Validated ability to apply finance knowledge to resolve complex business challenges, including the ability to distil and convey finance information to non-finance business leads
• Strong service ethos and skills supported by hands on customer service delivery experience
• Confident communication skills with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and management
• Strong intuition for business, with the ability to build positive relationships with key collaborators
• Ability to push back and lead difficult conversations with integrity and modesty
• A standout colleague with the ability to work effectively with employees at different levels of an organisation, including the ability to work collaboratively with and laterally lead across a GBS (KBS) organisation
• Generate feasible and efficient solutions to solve problems and capitalise on new opportunities
• An ability to challenge the status quo and demonstrate outside of the box thinking
• An ability to work simultaneously and effectively to progress several different tasks whilst to working to tight deadlines, including an ability to effectively prioritise
• Proficient in the use of Financial systems (preference for: SIA, One Stream, Maconomy, PowerBI, Tableau)
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, Word)

What’s in it for you

We provide a highly competitive benefits package!

• Medical plans with comprehensive, affordable coverage for a range of health services
• Health Savings Account/FSA
• Dental, Vision and benefits to cover unique healthcare needs
• Wellness Program
• 401k with matching
• Tuition Reimbursement, Commuter benefits
• Unlimited PTO

At Kantar we have an integrated way of rewarding our people based around a simple, clear and consistent set of principles. Our approach helps to ensure we are market competitive and to support a pay for performance culture, where your reward and career progression opportunities are linked to what you deliver. We go beyond the obvious, using intelligence, passion and creativity to inspire new thinking and shape the world we live in. Apply for a career that’s out of the ordinary and join us. We want to create an equality of opportunity in a fair and supportive working environment where people feel included, accepted and are allowed to flourish in a space where their mental health and wellbeing is taken into consideration. We want to create a more diverse community to expand our talent pool, be locally representative, drive diversity of thinking and better commercial outcomes.

At Kantar, the diversity of our employees provides a richer environment for our employees and broader depth and breadth of thinking for our clients. Kantar is committed to inclusion and diversity; therefore, we welcome applications from all sections of society and do not discriminate on the basis of age, race, religion, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, marital status or any other legally protected characteristics.

PRIVACY DISCLOSURE: Please note that by applying to this opportunity you consent to the personal data you provide to us to be processed and retained by The Kantar Group Limited (“Kantar”). Your details will be kept on our Internal ATS (Applicant Tracking System) for as long as is necessary for the purposes of recruitment, which may include your details being shared with the hiring manager.

The salary range for this role in New York is $99,900-166,500. Your final base salary will be determined based on several factors which may include but are not limited to location, work experience, skills, knowledge, education and/or certifications. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.

Why join Kantar?

We shape the brands of tomorrow by better understanding people everywhere. By understanding people, we can understand what drives their decisions, actions, and aspirations on a global scale. And by amplifying our in-depth expertise of human understanding alongside ground-breaking technology, we can help brands find concrete insights that will help them succeed in our fast-paced, ever shifting world.

And because we know people, we like to make sure our own people are being looked after as well. Equality of opportunity for everyone is our highest priority, and we support our colleagues to work in a way that supports their health and wellbeing. While we encourage teams to spend part of their working week in the office, we understand no one size fits all; our approach is flexible to ensure everybody feels included, accepted, and that we can win together. We’re dedicated to creating an inclusive culture and value the diversity of our people, clients, suppliers and communities, and we encourage applications from all backgrounds and sections of society. Even if you feel like you’re not an exact match, we’d love to receive your application and talk to you about this job or others at Kantar.