Business Finance Manager - Cost Management & Reporting

Job description / Role

Business Finance Manager - Cost Management & Reporting - Qatar Airways - Doha

In this role, you will be responsible for the preparation of timely and accurate financial and strategic information, monitoring variance against the budget, evaluating opportunities/risks, enhance efficiencies, implementation of cost control and focus to achieve financial targets. As a leader, the role will assist staff members in providing value-added, meaningful, and insightful reporting and analysis for Senior Management in addition to building strong staff for future growth and succession plan.
Key accountabilities of the role:

Operational:
- To present an objective view of the financial situation and provide sound recommendation for the allocation of resources in the most efficient way to achieve business objective.
- Delivering on-going financial analysis and insight driven guidance through a continuous review, analysis, cost reduction initiatives and targets.
- Lead, direct and manage the preparation, execution and analysis of the budgeting process on a timely manner and in accordance with the CFO directives on cost efficiencies for Direct Operational Costs, Manpower and Overheads and challenging budget holders to ensure optimum utilisation of resource.
- Develop advanced financial models and conduct analysis using a broad range of quantitative tools and techniques (trend analyses on past financial and operational performance, root cause analyses, analysis of profitability drivers, scenario modelling for future options, unit-cost benchmarking, etc.).
- Enhance the presentation and analysis submitted to Cost Management Committee ( CMC ) and conduct post CMC analysis for major capital projects and spends.
- Conduct in-depth analysis on a variety of complex strategic and business projects/issue, extracting and analysing data, presenting the findings and making recommendations directly to the business.
- Responsible for monitoring expenditure variances on ongoing basis and ensuring the actual expenditure in line with planned/budget. Lead investigation when variances are significant taking necessary control action.
- Prepare / Review financial forecasts and address the risks and opportunities coming from the forecast.
- Control over Inventory process and ensure that stock levels are within the acceptable order and reorder quantities.
- Control and continuous development over the accrual process and prepare periodical reports to the management
- Enhance the monthly management reports and presentations / departmental KPIs and ensure that the reports and analysis are submitted on a timely manner for both the user department and Finance Department.

Strategic:
- Develop, monitor and review, Internal Accounting Policies and Standard Operating Procedures for each area of operation within the business unit, in line with business needs, with focus on process improvement and internal control.
- Introduce a way of thinking culture that causes people with the authority to recommend feasible projects to firstly consider the value, risk and relative priority as a fundamental element of submitting the project proposal.
- Facilitate risk management process and mitigation activity through appropriate trend analysis and impact modelling on company business operations, initiatives, projects, strategic goals and objectives.
- Help co-ordinate the annual strategic planning process as required. This may encompass industry and market trends and analysis, SWOT analysis, scenario analysis and planning, budgeting and forecasting, strawman development and sensitivity analysis.

Management and Leadership:
- Provide direct leadership to team of Business Finance Managers and Senior BF officers through communication, active goal setting and coaching to achieve level of enhanced productivity. Able to oversee and guide the team to prioritize for effective delivery of tasks.
- Train and develop employees for succession planning and risk management. Align closely with Human Resources to recruit, hire, retain and support development of all team members
- Regularly evaluate the department or teams objectives, plans, procedures and practices, and makes appropriate changes if needed

Requirements

You will have a Bachelors Degree or equivalent and will be CPA/CA/MBA qualified with excellent post qualification experience within business finance in a Passenger airline environment. In particular you will have good knowledge of operational costs and cost unit measurement. You will have a total of 8 years of experience in this area, of which 5 years will have been in a management role.

Job Specific Skills are as follows:
- Must be self-starter, work independently and have the ability to prioritizes, handle multiple responsibilities, work interruptions and meet deadlines.
- Be able to set tight internal controls
- Able to work with more than one reporting line
- Strong Interpersonal and relationship building skills
- Proven commercial skills and business acumen
- Excellent written, verbal and strong influencing and negotiations skills
- Managerial skills - Ability to delegate work, set clear direction and manage workflow. Strong mentoring and coaching skills. Ability to train and develop subordinate's skills. Ability to foster teamwork among team members.

About the Company

Qatar Airways is proud to be one of the youngest global airlines to serve all six continents, and thanks to our customers’ response to our offerings, we are also the world’s fastest-growing airline. We connect more than 150 destinations on the map every day, with a fleet of the latest-generation aircraft, and an unrivalled level of service from our home and hub, the Five-star airport, Hamad International Airport in Doha, the State of Qatar.

Travel today involves a mix of short, medium and long-haul segments, with more people travelling than ever before. With the breadth of network coverage today, virtually no destination is unreachable. This is why the commitment to service is paramount; as our guests are travelling farther and more frequently than ever before, the experience on board is an important part of the journey itself.

Since our launch in 1997, Qatar Airways has earned many awards and accolades, becoming one of an elite group of airlines worldwide to have earned a 5-star rating by Skytrax. Voted Airline of the Year by Skytrax in 2011, 2012, 2015 and most recently in 2017, Qatar Airways has won the confidence of the travelling public. We have accomplished these goals by focusing on the details – how we run the business, and how you experience our airline.