Publicis Groupe is one of the world’s largest communications holding companies, present in over 100 countries and employing about 80,000 professionals.  The Groupe is positioned at every step of the value chain, from consulting to execution, combining marketing transformation and digital business transformation.

Under the leadership of our Global Production CEO, Sergio Lopez-Ferrero, our Global Production organization is responsible for driving global, profitable growth across production by:

• Driving deeper relationships with brands
• Innovative products
• Operational excellence
• Winning commercial approaches

The objective of the role is to be the financial planning and analysis partner to the Global Production CEO & CFO by driving critical insights through the analysis and comparison of financial and non-financial data.   This role will be the key FP&A point of contact for two-way communication between the Publicis Groupe HQ and market/regional FP&A contacts. 

The FP&A Director is responsible for the consolidation, analysis, management, and presentation of Global Production key financial data from each region with interaction with many key strategic stakeholders, including but not limited to the Global Production leadership team, Publicis Groupe HQ and shared service centers, and country finance leads. The position requires a strong ability to communicate with the key stakeholders across multiple geographical markets and attention to detail to ensure that information is collected and reported accurately, timely and reliably. This position is meant to be filled by an experienced finance leader possessing strong project management skills, with the ability to coordinate and deliver multiple/concurrent projects, with an inquisitive and curious nature, a passion for delivering and communicating clear and actionable analysis, and a desire to achieve exceptional results in a fast-paced environment.

Key Responsibilities include: 

• Work closely with the Global Production CFO to provide guidance through analysis of company operations and by providing financial reporting as a basis for strategic decisions and improving operating performance
• Collaborate with, and provide direction, and guidance to country level reporting teams to:
  • Ensure efficiency and consistency of the planning process across geographical markets.
  • Provide thorough recommendations to solve business issues and implement “best practices”
  • Prioritize and streamline tasks to ensure accuracy of financial information.
• Support Global Production CFO to co-ordinate all information gathering including KPIs and other metrics by:
  • Assessing financial opportunities and risks and making recommendations as needed to balance them.
  • Driving best practices in financial reporting and the global consolidation processes.
  • Assisting in the preparation of various presentations or supporting materials to management.
  • Performing ad hoc analysis, projects, and other duties as assigned.
• Complete Monthly, Quarterly and Annual financial analysis (Budget, Forecast and Actuals) by:
  • Preparing and participating in month-end financial statement reviews for accuracy.
  • Partnering with the country Production finance teams in monthly and quarterly closes to understand and be able to explain all significant variances to budget/forecast.
  • Scrutinizing forecasted expenses to understand their substantiation, and ensure expenditure is on track.
• Lead initiatives, including model building and refining, forecasting, and other in-depth analyses from start to finish by:
  • Developing solid working understanding of the company’s planning and reporting tools (HFM, Oracle/SAP and Salesforce)
  • Performing extensive modelling to predict growth, conversion, profitability, capacity, and cash flows
  • Ensuring financial standards and verifying that finance teams are preparing financial information using approved company financial reporting tools & procedures

• At least 15 years of experience within FP&A or Financial/Management Reporting
• Experience in leading projects and tracks of work through to completion
• Committed, detail oriented, self-starter with strong problem solving and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work independently
• Ability to meet deadlines and work in time-sensitive environments
• Excellent communication skills to convey complex metrics and analysis clearly and accurately to internal teams and all levels of management
• Demonstrated ability to theorize, develop and refine creative financial/operational models
• Experience in leading projects and tracks of work through to completion
• Perceptive discernment to identify problems, understand and be able to explain variances, evaluate consistency of financial information reported by agencies and calculate and project results
• Proficiency in interpreting financial results and key ratios to analyze and project trends
• Executive presence necessary to work with senior level management
• Strong Excel skills including experience with financial/operational model building
• Hyperion Financial Manager, Power BI and/or Salesforce experience preferred
• Ability to tell the financial story while expertly building presentations in PowerPoint
• Thrive under pressure and deadlines in a fast-paced organization

OTHER CRITERIA

• Ability to occasionally expand “normal working hours” to engage with globally located stakeholders
• Four-year degree in Finance or Accounting (Master’s degree preferred)
• Possess relevant finance and/or accounting certification