Senior Manager, OPEX Planning – Eurasia and Middle East

Position Overview:

As a Senior Manager, OPEX Planning, you will be responsible for the financial planning (business plan and rolling estimates) of Operating Expenses (Employee Costs and All Other Costs) for Eurasia Middle East Operating Unit, supporting the Global and Operating Units who are ultimately accountable for the Profit and Loss (P&L) results of their respective functions/markets.

We are looking for people that have a passion for building relationships and will be proud to be a representative of our brands, are results driven and have financial planning experience.
 

What You’ll Do for Us:

• Responsible for the financial planning (business plan and rolling estimates) of Operating Expenses (Employee Costs and All Other Costs)
• Oversees a team of OPEX (Operating Expense) analysts (at a third-party MSP (Managed Services Provider) who handles the financial planning activities namely
• Construct of the operating expense plan/budget/forecast based upon business direction and input, financial systems administration of the plan/budget/forecast, variance analyses across relevant comparative periods, communication with various stakeholders that inform the construct of the plans/budgets/forecasts, as well as generating insights about OPEX that influence decision-making and provide some input to the risks and opportunities process.
• Maintains the primary business relationship with the Financial Planning team and/or Finance Director/Finance Leadership at the Operating Unit/Center Function to inform the plan/budget/forecast for the OPEX line in the P&L, and therefore leads OPEX discussions with them.
• Reviews periodic OPEX plans/budgets/forecasts, ensuring completeness, reasonable accuracy, and relevance of information, supporting the Operating Unit/Center Function in effectively monitoring and controlling their respective OPEX results.
• Manages issue escalations coming from the team or from the Operating Units/Center Functions, with the goal of resolving the issues reported within a reasonable timeframe.
• Provides data and process guidance to production teams and the Operating Units/Center Functions as needed to comply with standards, reporting rules, submission requirements, and timelines.
• Tracks service levels and key metrics to ensure effective performance management, and drives actions resulting from them, for the resolution of issues or process/performance improvement.  Some service level commitments include:
• Timely delivery of operating expense plans/budgets/forecasts and related management reports based on agreed upon due dates as well as set submission deadlines;
• Reasonably accurate operating expense plans/budgets/forecasts and related management reports based upon business direction and input alongside fundamental financial assumptions;
• Forecast accuracy level is maintained within an agreed upon performance measure;
• Management reports reflect relevant information and contain (but not limited to) business-related insights, trends, historical rates, ratios, comparatives, productivity points, and other details that are necessary to support key business decisions on OPEX.
• Ensures adherence to SOPs (standard operating procedure) and as appropriate, recommends changes to improve the effectiveness of business support processes, enhancing quality, speed, and efficiency of output.
• In partnership with the MSP, identifies opportunities to globally standardize and simplify processing and reporting activities under the service scope.  Leads discussions with stakeholders where needed to implement prioritized initiatives to realize said opportunities.

Internal and External Communications:

• Communicates primarily with senior management internal company stakeholders with regard to OPEX performance and the underlying processes and activities supporting the generation of OPEX plans/budgets/forecasts pertaining to the geographies/groups in scope. 
• Also communicates with various senior leaders/functional leaders as needed to resolve issues pertaining to OPEX financial planning.
• Communicates with peers in Global Finance and Platform Services teams to facilitate collaboration, alignment, and the optimization of processes and service delivery.

Knowledge & Experience

• >7 years of experience in OPEX planning
• Leadership and management experience, as a highly efficient communicator and influencer at all levels