Job Description
Job Purpose and Backgroundin summary
To support fast growth in CDP’s scale and impact, the finance team is transforming, creating a new position for a talented Grants Finance Business Partner in the FP&A team.
About CDP
CDP is a not-for-profit charity that runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. The world’s economy looks to CDP as the gold standard of environmental reporting with the richest and most comprehensive dataset on corporate and city action. In 2021 we launched our new five-year strategy: Accelerating the Rate of Change - find out more here. Visit cdp.net or follow us @CDP to find out more.
About the Financial Planning & Analysis Team
CDP’s core activity of collecting and scoring environmental disclosures, is both commercial and charitable in nature. This creates complexity, and also makes it an exciting place to be. The FP&A team has been newly formed to deliver a step-change in the financial information and support provided to the business as it grows. Working closely with the Accounting & Reporting and Development (fundraising) teams the FP&A team leads on financial planning, forecasts, and analysis.
Key responsibilities include:
1. Supporting grant bids
- Develop budgets and other financial information or models needed for government and philanthropic bids, including complex and large international bids.
- Take account of the donor’s specific requirements for each grant, as well as CDP’s policies and objectives.
- Clearly document and communicate the logic and assumptions underpinning grant bids for the wider Development (fundraising) and Finance teams.
2. Process Improvement
- Improve the efficiency, consistency and financial risk management of the grant bid process e.g. by developing standard day rate costings and model templates.
- Change Management to ensure all new processes and principles are approved, documented, and communicated clearly and appropriately.
- Provide grants specific input to the wider Finance transformation project that is working to improve finance systems e.g. time tracking, accurate project cost coding, automation of data flows.
3. Business Partnering
- Become a trusted business partner to senior stakeholders in the fundraising and grant-funded areas to improve mutual understanding of financials and drivers.
- For these teams, support CDP’s annual budget and forecasting process, understand monthly results and variances to budget, produce insightful commentary
- Work closely with the Accounting & Grants Reporting teams to ensure accurate postings, and with the global Development teams to ensure effective, efficient grant management, e.g alignment of grants information between systems.
- Become the main point of contact for grant finance related questions from the wider Finance team in London or elsewhere at CDP.
4. Analysis
- Analysis and understanding of the performance of individual grants
- Analysis of grants performance at a portfolio level, e.g. by country/region or thematic area to identify trends and improve overall performance across CDP.
You will have the following skills and experience:
Essential criteria:
- Analytical and strong at making sense of financial data, ideally supported by good academics (i.e. a 2:1 degree in a numerical subject or equivalent)
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, and a clear, confident communication style with both finance and non-finance professionals
- Experience of creating budgets and other financial information, ideally to support bids for large/complex grants with international subgrants.
- Experience designing and building financial reports and cleaning and consolidating data
- Proficient in Excel, including intermediate modelling.
- A good working understanding of accounting principles including grants accounting.
- Curious and motivated to understand and communicate insights.
- Experience of improving processes
- Organised, and able to document work clearly, and manage tight deadlines and multiple, changing priorities.
Desirable criteria
- Experience and proficiency using Sharperlight report writer, and/or SAP B1
- Experience at an organisation of similar or greater scale and complexity, ideally with both charitable and commercial objectives
- Experience of systems implementation or optimisation
- Qualified accountant or finalist
This is a full-time role based at CDP’s London office and/or remotely reporting to Head of Financial Planning & Analysis.
Salary and benefits
Up to £55,000 per annum, 30 days’ holiday plus bank holidays, generous non-contributory pension provision, Employee Assistance Programme, life assurance, Training and development, flexible working opportunities as well as hybrid working and other benefits.
Interested applicants must be eligible to work legally in the UK. We cannot sponsor this role.
Before you apply
We’ll only use the information you provide to process your application. For more details on how we use your information, see our applicants privacy notice. By emailing us your CV and covering letter, you are permitting CDP to use the information you have provided for recruitment purposes.
How to apply:
Please email your CV and a covering letter setting out how you meet the required skills and experience or key responsibilities, which should be no more than two pages, to kate.addison@cdp.net with Finance Business Partner followed by your first name and surname in the subject. We will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis with a final deadline of midnight Thursday 15th March 2023 (UK) so early applications are encouraged.