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British Sugar is a home-grown success story and one of the most efficient and competitive beet processers in the world. Around 3,500 farmers based in East Anglia and the East Midlands supply our four advanced manufacturing sites with eight million tonnes of sugar beet every year. We, in turn, make this in to over 1 million tonnes of sugar, serving customers across the UK, Ireland and increasingly growing commercially in the EU and world sugar markets.

Job Purpose  

Reporting to the Finance Director and working closely the business, this critical role ensures that British Sugar (“BS”) keeps accurate accounting records and reports financial and other information in compliance with ABF’s accounting standards and requirements as well as relevant UK legislation.

BS is a complex business, so maintaining strong financial controls (and questioning/ challenging how these can be improved as well as identifying potential risks) is key to providing the assurance needed.

You will lead and inspire of a team of c. 20 finance personnel, looking after financial controls and compliance, credit control, accounts payable, master data, and tax and treasury, and will also interact with functional specialists in ABF and AB Sugar who provide technical support and knowledge.

Finally, you will carry on the progress made to embrace new technology and ways working to drive efficiency gains and enhance the service and insight given to the business.

Core Accountabilities
Lead and develop the central finance team, developing a culture of high performance and continuous improvement, and be an active member of the BS Finance Leadership Team  

Provide confidence in the integrity and accuracy of BS’s financial records by ensuring that the business has strong financial controls in place, and challenge how these controls can be enhanced and/ or be performed more efficiently.  

Drive the risk management agenda in BS, ensuring that the functions consider their key risks and how they may be mitigated (including those for finance)  

Proactively manage the relationships with our internal and external audit and ensure any issues raised are swiftly resolved.  

Ensure that ABF’s internal reporting requirements (such as year-end packs) and BS’s statutory accounts are accurately prepared on a timely basis.  

Provide technical expertise and input on accounting issues, working closely with AB Sugar/ ABF on key issues.  

Review and challenge the period end and budget/ forecast working capital figures to ensure they are reasonable and suggest ways in which working capital can be reduced and more accurately forecast.  

Undertake various compliance activities, including acting as the Anti-Bribery & Corruption officer. Skills, Knowledge & Competencies  

Curious, with a as a strong sense of ownership, and takes the initiative to investigate and challenge when differences and/ or unexpected results occur.  

Strong influencing skills and the ability to build constructive relationships across the business but can flex style to be robust in ensuring compliance when needed.  

Looks critically at how process could be improved, proactively suggesting how new solutions could help BS, and then drives agreed changes to completion.  

Natural people leader, who succeeds through the performance of their team.  

Keeps up to date on technical accounting knowledge, and can show how material changes may affect BS