Finance Business Partner

Lead Finance Business Partner for UK & Europe Trade supporting all channel heads but specifically Head of Merchandising. Develop greater transparency to enable the Retail, Outlet & Ecommerce channels to deliver profitable growth. Responsible for understanding the regions pricing structure and commercial strategy. Finance owner for forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, and financial reviews as well as ad hoc analytical support.

What You'll Be Doing

• Deliver annual forecasting and budgeting processes, with great focus on NTO, GM and pairs. Fully engage Leadership teams in developing these plans to ensure understanding of performance against financial plans and targets.
• Deliver complete performance visibility across all aspects including Footfall and Conversion performance along with driving trading activity.
• Be the Finance Lead on Business Cases on stores openings, closures and transfers with great focus on profitability analysis.
• Act as the lead in looking at product sell-through and inventory management to help mitigate aged inventory.
• Partner with various key stakeholders across the business to ensure the robustness of the forecasting and variance analysis.
• Provide feedback and challenge performance and delivery on a regular basis across multiple aspects of output, both in financial and operational metrics to influence leaders and provide expert view of position
• Provide ad hoc analysis and financial vision to the leadership team to deliver value add commercial acumen that makes a difference in the performance of the business
• Review, develop and improve Finance and Reporting processes to create efficiency and reduce non-essential workload.
• Key support to the Head of Commercial Finance.

What You'll Bring

• Professionally qualified accountant either CPA (US qualification) ACA (Chartered), ACCA (Certified) or ACMA (Management) and with relevant and extensive commercial finance experience gained in operational roles during that period
• Experience with People Management/Leadership.
• Significant experience with end-to-end full cycle in commercial finance manager.
• Experience working in a retail or consumer goods business. Good understanding of the challenges, dynamics and external factors impacting trading.
• Highly effective at business partnering and operating credibly at senior management level.
• In depth knowledge and experience of planning, budget and forecasting processes
• Extensive analytical experience, ability to take large amounts of complex data and quickly identify key issues and drivers
• Ability to provide financial information to high level stakeholders and proactively manage meetings.
• Must have good experience in building financial business cases, identifying key assumptions and working across business stakeholders.

This role is a hybrid role. The HQ office is located at 40 High Street, Street, Somerset, BA16 0EQ.  Open to discuss the frequency required at the office. 

About Clarks

Two brothers, a small town, and shoes that changed the world. Based in Somerset, England, Clarks has redefined shoemaking since its foundation in 1825, when James and Cyrus Clark made a slipper from sheepskin off-cuts and forever transformed the future of footwear.

Sparking revolutions and defining generations, our archive of over 25,000 shoes includes the inimitable Clarks Desert Boot™ and Clarks Wallabee™. And every pair we design today uses the same ground-breaking combination of invention and craftsmanship that started it all.

Progress is woven into our DNA. Whether we’re pioneering cutting-edge comfort technologies, championing social change, or working on trailblazing collaborations with cultural icons and KOLs, we’re always striding forward.

Join us in 2025 as we celebrate 200 years of giving people the freedom to move comfortably, proudly commemorating our legacy of craft, innovation, and impact – and looking boldly ahead, too.