Executive Director of Finance

Located on a fantastic campus in southwest London, the University of Roehampton has a strong and fast-growing reputation for the quality of its teaching and research and for enhancing the lives and employment prospects of our diverse student population. With a history in education that dates back over 180 years through our four colleges, the University has been a pioneer in transformative education and has been providing education to women longer than any other university in the country. In the last five years the University has implemented a transformation strategy focused on student number growth, cost control, diversification of programmes and partnership development; all designed to secure the University’s investment plans for future growth in pursuit of its corporate ambitions. It has made great strides in improving student outcomes and student satisfaction, and it now ranked top 10 in England for both undergraduate and postgraduate student satisfaction.

In the last year, the Finance function has been substantially reshaped, focusing on better reporting, improving management accounting support and credit control.

Reporting to the Vice-Chancellor the new Executive Director of Finance will work with and support the senior executive team of Roehampton, providing strategic financial direction, harnessing financial, resources and performance data to create and deliver the best financial conditions to ensure financial sustainability. In addition to continuing robust financial stewardship another key function will be to continue to develop future focused management information and modelling to support the long-term sustainability plan of the University. A key focus of the role will be to embed culture change in the finance function to deliver operational excellence in business partnering, credit control and customer service. The Executive Director of Finance will have management responsibility for a central team of professionals that includes finance, procurement, payroll, insurance, taxation and student finances.

The successful candidate will be a clear strategic thinker and excellent leader and manager. A graduate and a professionally qualified accountant with extensive successful management experience of equivalent services in large and complex international organisations. You will also have proven experience of developing and delivering successful financial strategies and have delivered significant financial change and transformational projects in similarly complex organisations. Balancing strategic and operational imperatives you will also have an ability to work at macro and micro levels to be effective. Understanding the issues faced by higher education would be advantageous but more important will be your experience of delivering excellent financial management and governance in complex high-quality customer facing environments. As a technical expert you will also possess excellent interpersonal skills and be able to work collegiately with all internal and external partners.