Senior Finance Manager - Buying & Merchandising
Job Title: Senior Finance Manager – Buying and Merchandising
Reports To: Head of Finance – B&M and Stores
Department: Finance
Location: London
Reports: 2 Finance Managers, 3 Finance Analysts
Overview:
This role acts as a strategic finance business partner to the Buying and Merchandising teams, as well as the Commercial Trading and Central Store Operations Team. The role provides end to end financial leadership across sales, stock, margin and stock loss, as well as supporting wider initiatives in this space, all with the aim of ensuring that commercial and strategic decisions are made with clear and robust financial insight. This is a highly collaborative, influential role that blends commercial acumen, operational understanding, and strong financial rigour to drive sustainable growth and operational excellence.
As a Senior Finance Manager, you will:
Lead on understanding the financial costs and benefits of key strategic initiatives such as Stock Productivity, Profit Navigation, and RFID.
Analyse and support commercial negotiations with brands, considering the impact on sales, contribution density, and operational efficiency.
Lead the budgeting and forecasting process for sales, margin, and stock loss, developing a detailed understanding of the strategic building blocks.
Provide financial KPIs and analysis for all key trading events, offering insight and proposals to support profitability.
Partner with Merchandising in the open‑to‑buy process, challenging proposals where appropriate and ensuring plans align with budgets and the five‑year plan.
Challenge the stock position, identifying opportunities to improve sell‑through, cover, and stock provisioning.
Work with the Inventory Team to understand the drivers of stock loss, driving efficiencies and improvements in processes and controls to reduce cost.
Own the stock balance from an accounting perspective, understanding the end‑to‑end process of stock recognition and provisioning.
Ensure business leaders understand performance in their areas through regular P&L reviews, with a focus on margin and costs.
Drive efficiencies and improvements in ways of working, encouraging curiosity, innovation, and effective use of tools to save time.
Foster an environment of robust financial control, with reconciled balance sheets and a thorough understanding of balances.
Develop talent within the team through coaching, fostering teamwork, and supporting individual development plans.
Strengthen the business partnering and advisory role of Finance to ensure the function has a “seat at the table” in all forums and with senior management.
Deputise for the Head of Finance when required.
How you’ll do it…you will be:
CIMA or ACA or ACCA qualified with significant post qualification experience
Ability to influence peers and upwards and assume a leadership role
Strong planning and analysis skills
Highly commercial, able to manage the broader perspective, whilst maintaining attention to detail and a ‘can do’ approach.
Well-developed people management skills with experience of managing, motivating and developing a large team.
Good working knowledge of financial systems and packages.
A leader, able to build strong stakeholder relationships in a challenging but collaborative way.
A change mindset, happy in an environment of continuous review and improvement
Strong analytical skills with the ability to balance the bigger picture with the fine detail.
Energetic and self-motivated, able to work independently, and as part of a team.
Excellent organisational skills with the ability to prioritise own and teams’ workload and deliver to tight deadlines.
Demonstrates strong problem-solving skills, uses initiative and proactively seeks creative alternative methods to resolve issues/problems.
