Job description
At McLaren, our mission is to set the standard for high performance in sport. And everyone, in every part of the team, has a role to play. So if you want to test your ideas with the world watching... And measure your progress in milliseconds... And play your part in racing history... You belong here. High performance starts with you.
Purpose of the Role:
To support the Director, Financial Control & Analysis in providing robust financial and technical control and analysis. This role will be responsible for leadership of the core transactional team, and the core Technical Accounting team.
This is a technical accounting role that sits within a Group company, and so the successful candidate will have a strong background in dealing with complex accounting transactions.
The post holder will:
- Be a stakeholder for the business on technical accounting areas, and be comfortable with some complex areas in FRS 102 around revenue accounting & financial derivatives.
- Oversee and critically challenge the team in the completion of month end/year end tasks, including submitting financial numbers to the Group consolidation team.
- Be accountable for helping to define and lead how the team will evolve to support the business stakeholders.
- Continual development and evaluation of financial systems, tasking and holding the team accountable in refining processes to improve efficiency, performance, and repeatability of tasks.
- Be a driver of change and improvement to make process more efficient and ensure our talent can exercise their value add to the Business.
- Collaboration with the Business Partnering and Forecasting team and sound understanding of the Business Structure to ensure that the financial systems are set up to capture and report appropriately – minimising manual interference and working towards self-service reporting capability.
- Responsible for providing information to support the external statutory reporting and compliance, including the audit process.
- Lead the core technical team to deliver on the P&L and Balance Sheet for key business units to stakeholders, and work with them to continually develop and refine the processes.
- Lead and develop direct reports in the team, setting appropriate and challenging objectives, with regular appraisal and tracking of performance objective.
- Other ad hoc tasks as required by the Director.
Principal Accountabilities:
Staff management
- Managing the sub-team leaders to meet the internal and external requirements.
- Provide clear instructions and direction to employees to ensure the appropriate prioritsation of work.
- Provide leadership and direction in staff development, set measurable objectives, and provide mid-year and end of year reviews.
- Monitor team engagement, track progress and take steps to strengthen interpersonal relationships, employee sentiment and team cohesion.
- Work with other senior members of the finance team to work collaboratively.
Year end
- Input into the preparation of Annual Report for the consolidated and individual Company financial statements.
- Management of the external auditors in the completion of the statutory audits for McLaren Racing and its subsidiaries.
- Ensuring the team meet Group deadlines.
Month end
- Lead and present on the underlying results to provide insight into the month end numbers against forecast and budgets
- Define & set out clear expectations to the team on the overall expectations for each individual sub-leader
- Ensure that all aspects are conducted in line with latest accounting standards. Key areas include:
- Accruals and prepayments
- Tangible and intangible assets
- Ensuring all control and other balance sheet accounts are reconciled
Cashflow
- Collation and presentation of the inputs to weekly cashflow submissions for payments and receipts, and management of best practice.
Financial regulations and legislation
- Keep abreast of changes and inform management of developments applicable.
- Implement changes as necessary.
Process and control
- Ensure all processes are documented.
- Continually seek to amend processes to improve efficiency.
- Ensure adequate control is implemented over all financial transactions.
Other responsibilities
- Ad-hoc analysis and project work.
- Respond to technical queries as they arise.
Job requirements
Knowledge, Skills and Experience:
- ACA or ACCA qualified, minimum 8 years post qualification or experience in industry.
- Experience with complex revenue, financial derivatives and cashflows.
- Experience of preparing company accounts and/or responsibility for running audits in practice, or in a financial accounting role in industry. If coming from practice, a demonstrable readiness to make the transition to industry.
- Experience dealing with all aspects of UK tax.
- Proven record working in, and leading a team.
- Good IT skills including Microsoft Excel.
- Experience of using a financial accounting software package.
- Demonstratable healthy scepticism to challenge and improve existing practices.
KEY COMPETENCIES
Analytical Thinking
- The ability to think clearly, logically and objectively.
- To analyse work-related problems in an effective way.
- To come to conclusions which are balanced, systematic and rational.
Building Relationships
- Recognising key relationships and making conscious effort to build rapport to enable smooth running of department or service.
- Establishing positive relations quickly with stakeholders irrelevant of status.
- Demonstrating tact and diplomacy in all professional relationships.
Commercial Judgement
- The ability to handle the business in a commercial and financially-driven way.
- The inclination to maximise revenues, profits & working capital.
- To minimise costs and constantly improve business efficiency.
Results Focus and Initiative
- The drive, determination and commitment to get things done.
- To move things forward, achieve, get results and do things better.
Planning and Organising
- Ability to set achievable goals and deadlines.
- Capacity to multi-task over several on-going projects, and able to define priorities.
- Ability to assess work done against future goal and monitor progress.
- Able to adopt systematic and pro-active approach that will ensure task completion.
- Confidence to recognise and deal with arising problems.
What McLaren can offer?
We constantly strive to be better tomorrow than we are today. Our ambition is to be the most pioneering and exhilarating racing team in the world, and our collective task is to set the standards for high performance in sport. We show up every day with energy and enthusiasm, ready to play our part.
We encourage and support diversity, equity and inclusion. We will actively promote a culture that values difference and eliminates discrimination in our workplace.
McLaren Racing is based at the iconic McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) near Woking. Here at McLaren, we offer hybrid working with 3 days a week based in the MTC.
Our state of the art, sustainable campus offers many facilities including a gym, restaurant and indoor and outdoor break-out areas, as well as direct access to park and common land. The MTC is connected to Woking mainline station via regular shuttle buses, from which London Waterloo is a 30 minute train ride.
We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including private healthcare, car schemes, life insurance and generous pension contributions.