Head of Innovation Finance, APAC

Job Description :

Please note that this is a contractor role to fulfill a 6-8 months family cover in Singapore.

About Us

With over 200 brands sold in nearly 180 countries, we’re the world’s leading premium drinks company. Bring your passion and use your curiosity as you explore, collaborate, and innovate to build brands consumers love. Together with passionate people from all over the world, you’ll test new ideas, learn and grow, and unlock a brighter, more exciting future.

Join us to create a career worth celebrating.

About the Function

Our Finance team deliver sustainable growth for our business, customers, and much-loved brands.

Whether we’re utilizing our digital capabilities and analytics to inform our business strategy or creating capacity to invest in the future — no two days are the same in our Finance team. Wherever your skills lie, we’ll help you to learn and develop, supporting you along the way in our inclusive culture.

About the team

The Head of Innovation Finance is finance business partner to APAC’s Regional Innovation Director, accountable for innovation brand portfolio across all APAC markets.

This role leads the Innovation Finance Team primarily focused on decision support and business partnering, as well as BPM for all innovation, brand change and VAPS across APAC. The team’s primary purpose is to maximize the business outcomes from Innovation & Brand Change and provide medium & long-term visibility into the financial impact/requirements of the innovation pipeline. As the leader you will be responsible for providing financial expertise to influence sound decision making, plan with the Innovation Leadership to ensure appropriate prioritization and alignment to business needs and provide transparent financials and insights to internal and external stakeholders.

This role reports to the Global Innovation Finance Director and manages one direct report.

About the role

• High degree of exposure to leadership and cross-functional teams across APAC markets (both demand and supply) as well as global counterparts (ISC and Global Finance)

• Requires cross-functional collaboration to maximize business outcomes of Innovation, NRM (Pricing), Brand Finance, Commercial Innovation and Commercial (Volume forecasts), Marketing (A&P Investment), Supply and Demand Project Leads (Design that impacts COGS, project spend), FP&A to agree budgets and ongoing spend outlooks

• Balance multiple priorities, including high volume of projects, Executive business partnering and supporting agenda, broader finance agenda, Innovation Finance continuous process improvement and team management

• Balance focus between short-term and long-term, short-term financial governance of in-flight projects and longer term strategic planning and influencing broader Innovation Agenda

Role Responsibilities

Innovation Strategy:

• Strategic planning, partner with Innovation Leadership team to build/maintain and influence the 5-year rolling plan for APAC (spanning current financial year, next financial year, rolling 36-month pipeline)

• Connecting role to ensure Innovation plans are meeting stakeholder needs across Executive (incl. APAC FD), market Finance Teams, Supply, Global Innovation, Marketing/Brand Finance

• Prepare 5-year strategic plan inputs and Innovation contributions to annual strategy conferences and other Board-level presentations

In year Innovation execution, planning and forecasting:

• Oversee financial governance of all innovation, brand change projects, supporting team in their decision support efforts, as well as preparing for Gates, including briefing Finance Gate Keepers

• Consolidate latest expectations of Innovation and brand change financial outcomes, and report to various stakeholder groups.

• Prepare annual operating plan for Innovation, full P&L to operating profit

• Partner with Finance Systems and stakeholders responsible for planning to ensure Innovation launches are known, communicated and are set up in product hierarchy to enable planning

Budget owner:

• Plan and secure annual Innovation budget (Demand and Supply costs)

• Coordinate regular spend outlooks by partnering

• Propose project budget re-allocations where under or overspends are identified in partnership with Innovation Leadership Team

Performance Management and Reporting :

• Periodically assess Innovation product actual performance vs. gate expectations and influence action (e.g. partnering with Commercial Finance team to drive remediation action on profitability, or Margin Management team on COGS interventions)

• Transparent reporting to ensure innovation agenda is aligned with broader business outcomes, e.g. meeting needs of APAC FD, BU Finance and Global Innovation Team

• Coordinate content creation for APAC and Global Innovation inputs into Investor Report

Financial control:

• Key point of contact (and coach to Innovation Finance Team) to advise on accounting treatment of various issues that arise on projects, e.g. classification of spend, capital or project expenditure?

• Ensure innovation budget is being spent on allowable expenditure and is correctly accounted for, e.g. advising on appropriate accounting period based on progress of receipt of goods/services

• Maintain outstanding financial controls in the end-to-end innovation process, including upholding delegated authorities for project expenditure (e.g. underwrites), preventative controls for maximizing financial outcomes from innovation, e.g. setting and holding teams to account for GM% and COGS targets

• Complete project reviews and underwrite approvals in Planview within delegated authority limit

Team Leadership:

• Manage the development and careers of direct report

• Review of project financials prior to review by Finance Gate Keeper

• Assign Innovation & Brand Change projects to team members, balancing development needs with fair workload amongst the team

Experience / skills required

• Minimum 7 years professional experience, with strong foundation in finance, demonstrating career advancement and increasing responsibilities

• MBA preferred

• Strategic thinker, with excellent analytical and problem-solving skills

• Strong project management capabilities

• Finance experience in consumer goods, beverage alcohol preferred

• Strong team player and inspiring leader

• Operate effectively with ambiguity

• Ability to influence stakeholder with a wide variety of seniority and functional experience

Diversity statement

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a crucial part of this.

We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you’ll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You’ll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more.

Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to the next level and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world.

Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you.

Worker Type :

Fixed Term Contract (Fixed Term)

Primary Location:

Ocean Financial Centre

Additional Locations :

Shanghai

Job Posting Start Date :

2025-01-03