Director - Liquidity & Working Capital Management, EY-Parthenon - London

The opportunity

Many management teams struggle to sustain good control over cash, cash flows and the working capital that drives them, meaning that businesses often incur expensive financing costs, cannot take advantage of organic or acquisition investment opportunities, or are “at risk” in a landscape of market and operational change.

EY’s Liquidity team supports businesses in improving the effectiveness of their processes and commercial arrangements in order to develop sustainable solutions to free cash that is tied up on the balance sheet. Focusing on sustainable change underpinned by advanced analytics, reporting and forecasting, they deliver measurable value through operational, finance and treasury processes. The team has significant experience supporting the complete spectrum of listed and privately owned companies across multiple sectors or geographies, whether a successful business seeking to enhance shareholder value, or an organisation experiencing a cash crisis. The Liquidity team is also fully integrated into EY’s transactions practice, supporting the identification of risks and opportunities in deal situations, and supporting clients through ownership changes across the cash, treasury and working capital landscape.

The team is one of the market leading advisers in this space and part of the world’s largest specialist Liquidity, Cash and Working Capital advisory practice.

Your key responsibilities

As a Director within the Working Capital Team, you will lead teams driving the delivery of operational liquidity and working capital improvement engagements, contribute directly to business development activities and to the development of the Practice’s understanding and execution of cash.

You will input knowledge and subject matter expertise, coordinating and driving the production of deliverables, often across EY disciplines, to the agreed timescales, leading or supporting with the management and communication to clients on progress and escalation of issues to the Partner Group and C-Suite.

You will actively work with senior team members to establish, maintain and strengthen internal and external relationships, leveraging these relationships to identify and pursue potential new engagement opportunities.

As an influential member of the team, you will help to create an inclusive culture and will coach and counsel junior team members and help them to develop.

Skills and attributes for success

Key skills and attributed will include some or all of the following:

• Significant experience of delivering transformational change in a financial environment, which may have been gained in Industry or as a Consulting practitioner, and which may include Treasury management, Cash-flow forecasting, Cash and Working Capital improvement,
• Experience in understanding and assessing the operational and financial drivers of the Order-to-Cash, Procure-to-Pay and Forecast-to-Fulfil cycles and of articulating and implementing the potential opportunities that can be implemented to deliver sustainable performance improvement,
• Leading, reviewing and presenting financial analysis of opportunities for working capital reduction, and translating this into practical advice and recommendations to support operational improvements,
• Leading the development of solutions to enhance the robustness or accuracy of a cash-flow forecast,
• Ability to synthesise complex issues from initial hypothesis, and identify the data required to confirm hypothesis,
• Affinity for presenting solutions, issues and findings in both a concise written and oral format with limited review and to coach teams to similar outcomes,
• Robust project management skills, ensuring the quality and consistency of performance in every task, whilst working to tight deadlines,
• Strong interest and track record in developing, maintaining and starting to monetise ongoing working relationships, leveraging a lead project role managing key communications with day-to-day and C-Suite client contacts,
• Track record in identifying potential sell-on opportunities and broadening relationships and engagements,
• Significant experience in building and leading the development of branding material such as sector or industry “points of view”, trade and financial press contributions and client pitches,
• An interest and/ or a track record in product and practice development.

To qualify for the role you must have:

• Minimum ten years of recent experience in a client-facing discipline at a major accountancy or strategy firm, bank or boutique, or in industry with a focus on cash and working capital (including order to cash, procure to pay, or supply chain and inventory, trade finance, cash flow, treasury or operational performance,
• A relevant qualification such as professional accountancy or other finance qualifications (e.g. ACA, ACCA etc), or relevant alternative qualifications,
• Strong technical and analytical capabilities – Excel required and capability in broader analytics and AI at some level expected,
• The ability to build strong relationships across the firm, bring external relationships to the firm and to actively participate in business development,
• Appreciation of the risks inherent in advising businesses and their stakeholders, and
• A passion to drive improvement in team capability through methodology development and coaching.

Ideally, you may also have: 

• Experience in treasury management (including supporting or leading the establishment and operation of a Treasury function),
• Experience of data visualisation tools (e.g. PowerBi, Qlik, Tableau and Spotfire), and knowledge of coding languages (e.g. VBA, Python, SQL, DAX, M),
• An understanding or and an aptitude in AI,
• European language skills that are business proficient, and
• An ability to understand how to build your own network of contacts with work providers.

What we look for

We are looking for candidates who are highly motivated, driven, and have a passion to be part of a fast-paced, successful transaction team.  Being a strong team player is also important as well as someone who is happy to work flexibly throughout a period of growth within the cash and working capital team.

What we offer you

We will fuel your ambition and potential with future-focused skills development that equips you with state-of-the-art methodologies and technology-enabled solutions. With more than 25,000 people in 150 countries, you will join an inclusive and empowering culture that values your uniqueness, prioritizes your wellbeing, and immerses you in the diverse thinking and cross-cultural experiences necessary to help deliver impact to clients across the globe and to help build a better working world. Learn more about careers at EY-Parthenon.

Are you ready to shape your future with confidence? Apply today.

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