Senior Business Analyst - Finance Transformation
London - Commercial
What we're looking for
The Economist Group is embarking on a programme to replace our core Finance platform. This role will focus on the core Finance processes within the Group Finance team and across the wider function. The successful candidate will investigate and evaluate finance workflows and data architecture to confirm fit for accuracy, billing and month end reporting, and collaborate with stakeholders to define high level requirements for eventual ERP implementation.
Accountabilities
- Process Diagnostic: Lead end to end confirmation of current Finance workflows, identifying where data workflows require manual finance activities and workarounds in the legacy PeopleSoft environment.
- Strategic "Fix vs. Hold" Recommendations: Evaluate complex Finance workflows to determine which should be cleaned up immediately as a no regrets move and which should be documented for the future ERP implementation.
- Cross Functional Stakeholder Alignment: Facilitate engagement across a wide range of business stakeholders and build consensus on future processes that bridge commercial activity and financial integrity.
- Requirement Elicitation: Elicit business and finance requirements from teams, documenting for the future ERP or handing off to engineering teams for immediate execution.
- Data Lineage & Integrity Mapping: Investigate relationships between workflows, data objects and Finance activities across multiple systems to ensure accuracy and clean data flows.
- AI Transformation Potential: Re engineer processes that take advantage of AI capabilities while maintaining finance process integrity and audit rigor.
- Transformation Mindset: Lead creative discussions to unblock stuck thinking and reimagine the future state.
- Impact Assessment & Risk Mitigation: Analyse proposed upstream changes to assess effects on financial controls and auditability, avoiding double fix or migration risks.
Experience, Skills and Professional Attributes
- Finance Transformation: Experience in the pre implementation or process optimization phase of a Finance Transformation, ideally involving a legacy ERP replacement.
- Finance Domain Expertise: Understanding of Finance team workflows and how commercial business data capture impacts downstream General Ledger and billing functions.
- Strategic Process Design: Track record of identifying no regrets process efficiencies in complex, manual environments and making data driven recommendations for immediate versus future implementation.
- Adept Stakeholder Navigator: Expert in coordinating a diverse stakeholder map with varying agendas and priorities toward business interest decisions.
- Requirement Elicitation: Skilled at extracting business requirements with clear value links to both business strategy and finance needs.
- Strategic Adaptability: Ability to work effectively in a high level, strategy focused role while supporting simultaneous RFP and business case workstreams.
Contract Type
12 month fixed term contract (FTC)
Commitment to Diversity
We are committed to building and retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce.
Benefits
- Competitive pension or 401(k) plan
- Private health insurance
- 24/7 access to counselling and wellbeing resources through Employee Assistance Program
- Work From Anywhere program (up to 25 days per year)
- Generous annual and parental leave
- Dedicated days off for volunteering and moving home
- Free access to The Economist content including online subscription, apps and podcasts
Working Arrangements
The majority of our roles operate on a hybrid pattern with 3+ days office attendance required.