E&E Finance Business Partner

The British Council is the UK's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries, promoting a wider knowledge of the UK and the English language.

As an E&E Finance Business Partner at the British Council, you will be instrumental in providing strategic financial guidance and support to the English & Exams business unit. This encompasses a broad range of financial activities including detailed planning, budgeting, and forecasting, alongside comprehensive performance analysis. The position requires close collaboration with operational teams to ensure robust financial decision-making, effective risk management, and the maximization of commercial impact for the business.

1. Serve as a trusted finance partner to Finance Directors and Market Leads, offering decision support, financial insights, and profitability analysis to drive commercial performance and strategic goals.
2. Help stakeholders understand financial performance by identifying cost drivers, key performance indicators, risks, and opportunities, while building strong relationships across finance, program delivery, and corporate services.
3. Manage multiple stakeholder and product support requests, prioritizing work based on risk, business impact, urgency, and competing demands.
4. Develop financial analyses and business cases for Teaching Centres, delivery models, market expansion, property changes, and investment opportunities to support strategic decision-making.
5. Produce cost-benefit, ROI, and payback analyses, along with operational and commercial models, to optimize pricing, utilization, and delivery channels.
6. Conduct scenario and financial modeling to assess regulatory, tax, and organizational changes, supporting multi-year planning through revenue, margin, and cost forecasts.
7. Support annual planning, forecasting, reforecasting, and scenario modeling by consolidating inputs across business units and regions, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and alignment with approved assumptions and strategy.
8. Provide clear financial guidance to non-finance stakeholders, explaining variances, managing budget and forecast queries, and supporting expenditure tracking and financial processes.
9. Prepare and deliver accurate management reporting, KPI dashboards, variance analysis, and performance insights, highlighting trends, key drivers, and emerging issues across Exams and Teaching.
10. Produce ad hoc analysis and reporting to support business decisions, performance reviews, and leadership requirements, while ensuring data accuracy through close collaboration with the CoE and reporting teams.

1. Intermediate experience in financial management, FP&A, or management accounting.
2. Strong financial modeling, forecasting, and analytics skills.
3. Strong data literacy, including experience with Power BI and dashboard creation.
4. Proven experience providing financial support to operational teams with positive feedback.
5. Excellent communication skills, including the ability to tell stories with data and effectively explain financial concepts to non-finance colleagues.
6. Experience managing multiple deadlines and working with a portfolio of activities.
7. A Bachelor's Degree.
8. At least 4 years of relevant experience.
9. Ability to build trust and communicate financial information clearly to non-finance teams (Business Partnering).
10. Solid understanding of budgeting, forecasting, and financial performance drivers (Financial Acumen).
11. Capability to prepare meaningful internal variance analysis and identify early warning indicators (Analytical Skills).
12. Aptitude for managing multiple demands and deadlines (Multi-tasking and Prioritization).
13. Strong relationship-building skills across dispersed teams (Collaboration).
14. Confidence in both planning and reporting functions, preferably with EPM systems like Anaplan (EPM System Expertise).
15. Proficiency in written and verbal English.
16. Desirable: Experience in Exams, Teaching, or broader education/commercial service environments.
17. Desirable: Experience with SAP or similar ERP platforms.
18. Desirable: Experience with Anaplan or similar EPM platforms.