Description This role is a fixed-term contract to cover maternity leave. Description EL&S Vocational Qualifications is a global, mature and market leading vocational qualifications business with a revenue base of £150m annually. It is a full P&L, operating across multiple markets, developing, selling and delivering high stakes products where execution is paramount. As Finance Director, you will be responsible for leading the EL&S Vocational Qualifications finance team and providing financial, strategic and commercial support and advice to the MD Vocational Qualifications, and leadership team to drive high value commercial decisions and support strategic growth across UK and International Vocational Qualifications. This position will be a key player with the leadership team on how the organization will adapt and thrive in the changing market for vocational qualifications. Your role plays a key role in understanding the company’s capabilities, portfolio, market and industry trends, and optimises investment opportunities and strategic advice on cost drivers within the organisation. You will envision new ways of working to enable and execute the financial and wider business plans, and build Finance distinctive capabilities that create market value. You will be the face of finance for your division and act as a conduit between the business and our Finance Centre’s of Expertise, ensuring relevant technical advice is proactively obtained to resolve any issues. Your Key Responsibilities • Assures a strategic thinking beyond managing the numbers, envisioning new ways of working to enable execution of the financial and wider business plans. • Contributes to an effective resource allocation connected with the best investment opportunities, financial performance in the context of long cycles and macro-trends, anticipating risk and reducing uncertainty. • Provides critical inputs to the business planning and expenditure forecasting processes; innovates to enhance the business impact of target setting, planning and budgeting. • Sets and defines the framework for organisational goals and objectives and leads organisation-wide strategy, planning, design and implementation work. • Working effectively across the function and broader organisation, leading cross functional teams to accomplish objectives, while maintaining ultimate accountability for managing and risk and ensuring business control. • Reviewing and approving investment proposals for the Business Segment. • Identify and implement reporting improvements. Work collaboratively with PFS to deliver key reporting, planning and forecasting processes providing accurate and timely future facing data on which to base decisions. • Reinforcing Pearson values and creating a collaborative culture by recognizing colleagues; driving change and transformation by removing barriers. Our Successful Candidate We welcome applicants with a Finance/Accountancy qualification and significant experience gained in a commercial finance role. You will be comfortable in prioritising, balancing, organising and allocating time, actions and resources to generate significant results and achieve critical goals, even in fast-moving or uncertain situations. You will demonstrate excellent communication skills, along with strong analytical, problem solving and digital analysis skills. Key to success in this role is partnering with/influencing senior leaders along with networking with key stakeholders across functions/geographies to support ideas and create foundation for influence. Building internal and external stakeholder relationships is key. This role requires a strategic and curious mindset, and the capability to develop and lead high performance diverse teams to accomplish objectives. Knowledge of multiple business models is an advantage.