ROLE: Finance Manager
REPORTING: Financial Controller – HQ
DEPARTMENT: Finance and Commercial
LOCATION: Tanzania
OGILVY AFRICA – COMPANY OVERVIEW
Ogilvy Africa is the largest network agency on the continent catering to 40 countries with a team of ~900 people across Central, East and West Africa. Headquartered in Nairobi – Kenya, Ogilvy Africa manages a portfolio of over 100 brands for clients such as AB Inbev, Airtel, Africa CDC, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Distell, Equity Bank, Exxon Mobil, Kenya Airways, Mondelez, NCBA, Nestle, Philips, PWC, SAB Miller, Sanlam, Total, UNICEF, Unilever and WWF amongst others.
We offer services across the full spectrum of marketing domains including advertising (on and offline), Customer Engagement & Commerce, Digital Transformation, Shopper Marketing, Media, PR & Influence; all under one unified setup. We’ve also created proprietary marketing products in areas such as real-time marketing, social intelligence, virtual experiences, influencer management, e-commerce enablement and content hubs. Our unique operating model, One Ogilvy, allows clients and brands to cut the complexity of agency structures and create seamless omni-channel experiences for their consumers, across touchpoints. Fuelled by the holy trinity of content, data and technology; Ogilvy Africa strives to be the best-practice agency model, for Developing & Emerging markets.
In our 20+ years in Africa, we have won the highest number of regional and global awards for the region including Cannes Lions, Clio awards, Dubai Lynx Festival, SABRE Awards (Global and Africa); to name a few.
Ogilvy is a leading global creative network of WPP. Launched by David Ogilvy over 70 years ago, it’s referred-to as the Agency of Giants, by several industry experts.
JOB PURPOSE – SUMMARY
To provide financial leadership and commercial support to the local businesses. Partner with the senior management teams to ensure delivery of financial performance and act as a trusted advisor to the local market Managing Partner. Responsible for all financial and commercial reporting within Agency Network for Tanzania, including Agency and Agency Production. Ensure adherence to company policy and procedures and to strive for best practice in all areas of Financial Management and Control.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES & ACCOUNTABILITIES
General
• Responsible for managing the financial performance of the business by helping senior managers to reach the right solutions to commercial issues and identifying and dealing with key risks ahead of time.
• The Finance Manager will be ultimately responsible for the local finance teams. This will include recruitment, restructuring, on-boarding, training and welfare.
Operations
• Partner with the local Managing Partner in Agency and Production and assist them in the commercial growth of their businesses.
• Help senior management improve resource allocation and tracking to facilitate the most effective and cost-efficient allocation of resourcing against clients and, in turn, also understand resource requirements to facilitate prompt hiring when needed.
• Review monthly and quarterly KPIs such as Net working capital, ageing reports, flash management reports to ensure compliance with targets
• Work with local Managing Partner and regional team to ensure that any business/ revenue opportunities are identified, maximised and accurate business plans/costing models to support this are submitted
• Ensure that all material local contracts are reviewed
• Work with local finance teams and office leaders to resolve day-to-day issues
Budgets and Forecasts
• Responsible for reviewing and managing local market budgets and forecasts
• Responsible for working with the management team to ensure that revenue targets and profit margins are met
Reporting
• Responsible for ensuring timely accurate management financial reporting for India
• Responsible for the local finance teams’ reporting of statutory financial reporting including audit and local legislative requirements on a timely and accurate basis.
• Responsible for ad-hoc financial requests as required by global and regional finance
Financial Control
• Ensuring adherence to company policies and procedures
• Ensuring financial controls are sufficient, in place and maintained in line with Sarbanes Oxley & company Policies and Procedures
• Ensuring finance teams are advised of any changes in financial controls and group policies
• Assisting them with any audit enquiries (both SOX and external) where required
• Authorising local market expenses
Client Remuneration and Contractual Requirements
• As required, review potential new client contracts and ensure that they are compliant with WPP guidelines
• Regular Review of pricing and revenue formulas for existing and new clients
• Provide the Operations Team with the finance data they need when developing pricing and cost estimates for clients.
• Ensure local markets are compliant with the terms of client contracts
• Ensure that local markets are following regional guidance on client reporting
PROFESSION, TECHNICAL SKILL AND PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
• Excellent general business acumen with proven ability to contribute sound financial insights to the strategic planning process. Experience of working within WPP an advantage.
• Able to think clearly and act promptly in a time pressured environment that requires rapid and accurate decision making
• Strong time management skills to ensure that day to day operational matters run regularly while remaining responsive to peers and senior management when dealing with queries/requests.
• Good people skills at a senior level, able to influence decision making and carry the respect of peers, good negotiation skills and experience of working in a matrix management structure
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work in a matrix environment. Customer orientated attitude in providing a best-in-class finance service to other parts of the business.
• Experience of working in and managing teams in different locations
• Problem solving and multi-tasking are pre-requisite
• Industry experience preferred, including both agency experience and production experience
• Willingness to travel as required
• Minimum ten years work experience
OGILVY BELIEFS
• People need regular OS upgrades: Even the best OS will be obsolete tomorrow unless its constantly upgrades. Same is true for people.
• We need more cows than milk men: We are a culture of practitioners, not managers. We contribute before we comment.
• Creative about creativity: Creativity is, and will always be, our differentiator. Creativity now includes holy trinity of Data -Content -Tech.
• Diversity is a competitive advantage: New profiles, new skills, new styles of leadership make us a stronger company.
• Collaborative advantage > Competitive advantage: Find partners who are on top of their game at the skillset we need. It’s the only way to scale at the speed without pretending to have all the answers.
• Team > Individual: You get a lot more done when everyone stops worrying about who gets credit at the end. Teams Succeed, individuals fail.
• Fail often, fail fast: We see entrepreneurs in all our people and encourage a culture of pilots. Test, succeed and scale; or fail-fast learn, learn from the failure, and start something new.
HOW TO APPLY
Ogilvy Africa is an equal opportunity employer that believes in diversity as a competitive advantage. We are committed to a fair and inclusive hiring process. To minimise unconscious biases from our hiring process, we’ve taken on an initiative to #RightTheCV (find out more by clicking here)
We encourage candidates to apply using this free, downloadable template, available here https://bit.ly/2OtLnYH
Kindly forward your application to [email protected] indicating the job title as the subject. Please also share your motivation for the role along with your updated CV
Closing Date: September 19,2024