Country Finance Manager, Careers at Unilever, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Travel required 10% or limited travel. Now limited due to CV19 restrictions

About The Tea Business

Unilever is proud of its Tea business, the biggest in the world, with world class purpose driven brands such as Lipton, PG tips and Pukka.

As a standalone entity, the Tea company remains number one in the world and is even better positioned to lead the industry and take full advantage of the opportunities in the category, with more focus and entrepreneurship driving greater growth and value.

As a country finance manager, you drive the business and are responsible for in year P&L delivery and setting strategic direction for the business.
• E2E responsibility of financial accounting, reporting and cash management in your country, including O2C. Continue to build and support local business growth. Maintain strong internal controls by having a full understanding of end-to end process of set of local books, and ensure adherence to accounting and financial policies and procedures of ekaterra
• Sets the strategy, focus and priorities for your market in close conjunction with the local GM and regional CFO. Develop long term business and operating plan and driving local strategic business plans to ensure delivering of medium to long term profit forecasts, budgeting, and financial reporting.
• Drive performance management and advise on the strategic financial decisions for your local market and in market trade-offs among cost & service
• Finance agenda & people development: design of local market organizations and implementation on the ground. You ensure that the finance teams are motivated, energized and upskilled to be a highly effective finance team.

The current vision for ekaterra is to champion a tastier, healthier, more sustainable world of plant-based drinking. Purposeful thinking will be the core anchor of the business, its brands as well as its culture, and enables simple and agile decision making, supports an entrepreneurial mindset and is driven by passion for our consumers.

As we move through this journey towards separation, we are seeking employees with a passion for exciting entrepreneurial experiences, who want to pursue unique career opportunities and have a desire to be an integral part in building the bright future of this plant-based company.

• Drive and results orientation:
• The individual has a natural bias for action and is willing to make a positive difference. Sets new and stretching goals for self and team, exploits opportunities and strives to achieve beyond what is expected. Has high levels of self-assurance and shows resilience and belief in own ability to achieve goals
• Analytical power:
• Brings powerful analysis to issues and has a eye for detail and uses an intelligent mix of logic and intuition in decision making and judgment. Rapidly absorbs new information, knowledge and applies new techniques, technology, and procedures.
• Strategic orientation:
• Can clearly articulate evolving priorities for the business and have a point of view on shaping the agenda for the future. He sees the bigger picture and provides new perspectives and clarity. Spots issues in the future and responds to the dynamic environment.
• Collaboration and Influencing:
• Is impactful and flexible in communicating and influencing the issues with the ability to work across matrices of functions. Builds informal networks, actively listens, and responds to the concerns and feelings of others even when not explicitly stated
• Passion for people:
• Has a genuine passion to develop people – through coaching, mentoring and the desire to devote personal time to build people skills and having a flair to lead people and command followership. The candidate should have the maturity and deftness to understand nuances in different inter relationships and find the way to get the job done, holding people accountable where necessary.

Your Key Tasks

• Leads a local team of approx. 3 to 6 FTE Direct Reports
• Reports into regional ekaterra CFO
• Task horizon of >3 years

Stakeholder Management And Key Interfaces

• A university / professional accountancy degree
• Minimum 6 years’ experience in FMCG industry
• Strong understanding of local customer landscape, shopper market insights
• Analytical skills and deep understanding of relevant Research tools
• Change management skills
• Strong financial and business acumen
• Building and managing Teams, ideally cross-country & virtual teams
• Fluent in English language.

Skills And Experience

Highly adaptable and entrepreneurial

• Driven by Innovation and strong change affinity
• Embrace a high growth mindset with strong love for consumers, shoppers and customers
• Have strong communication, negotiation and influencing skills with diverse, multi-functional stakeholders
• End to end management, ability to understand the big picture but also comfortable with details and managing the operations

Excited about the Role?

Please apply online. Your application will be reviewed against our requirements and we will be in touch to provide you with an update on the status of your application.

By applying for this vacancy, you are confirming that you have made your Line Manager aware of your application and you are eligible to apply for new internal opportunities.

Unilever is an organisation committed to equity, inclusion and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future, every day, for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions and drive inclusion across the business. At Unilever we are interested in every individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you! Thus if you require any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of your application so that we can support you through your recruitment journey.