Head of Commercial Finance - 12 Month FTC

As Head of Commercial Finance for Trainline Partner Solutions (TPS) you will be the key business partner to the VP and Directors who lead our TPS segment. You will be the finance commercial thought partner for the TPS team, helping them appraise business cases and new deals, together with forming strategy and deep diving into business performance. This is a true partnership role where the business will look to you to help articulate the scale of their growth and profit ambition and help them look around corners in potential deal structures. You will bring data and fact led critical thinking to help investment and ROI planning and to ensure the business objectives are being met in the most effective and efficient way. You will deliver high quality, actionable insight to drive decision-making and investment allocation across our three TPS business segments. 

TPS provides industry-leading, innovative rail technology solutions for businesses of all sizes, travel sellers, and rail carriers with the aim of making the complex world of business travel and ticket retailing simple . As Trainline’s B2B arm, TPS offers booking solutions directly to thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through Trainline Business as well as distributing rail content to Travel Management Companies (TMCs) through our GAPI connection. TPS also builds, supports and manages “white label” online and mobile sales platforms for many of the UK’s biggest rail companies.  

This role also includes all aspects of Corporate development in relation to possible acquisitions. This part of the role by its nature can work in peaks and troughs – but you will be the lead finance partner to our Business Development director in assessing possible acquisitions, critically assessing their financial information and considering whether they would be additive to our Group. 

In this senior role you will also be key to helping our department evolve. Though you wont have direct line management you will be play a key role within our finance leadership team – helping coach and mentor more junior members, setting the right tone at the top and contributing to the overall culture of our team. This excellent leadership will also help you embed relationships with your Business partners and build strong working relationships. 

The positiion will be a 12 month fixed term contract to cover parental leave and we are looking for someone who can ideally start very quickly.

In the role you will:

Be the finance business partnering across TPS – partnering at a VP/Director level, including:

• Powering business growth whilst optimising for balance with shareholder return: assessing and challenging business thinking on proposed commercial terms and renegotiations: with an eye on delivering new wins and driving top line versus delivering sustainable margins
• Optimising deal terms and structures, to help deliver the best outcome for Trainline whilst understanding and balancing the needs of counterparts and likelihood of success in negotiations
• Sales budgeting & reforecasting: owning the process for setting budgets and measuring delivery against budgeted outcomes, for capturing variances to plan and understanding outturn impacts
• Strategic partnership and business case partnering: you will be part of the strategy process with the TPS function – thought partnering with the leadership team to form and size the strategy and consider any required trade offs and financial criteria for assessing them 
• Holding the business to account on budget and OKR outcomes, and managing / influencing decision-making on course-corrections and adjustments to the plan
• Be the finance lead and voice in the room in Exec level forums – you will be an excellent story teller who can summarise underlying trends and share an opinion on what they mean for future trajectory and any calls to action
• Helping to set and monitor operational KPIs which align with wider goals and guide the business to success
• Shaping and influencing Data Science team roadmap to prioritise biz-critical, high impact projects
• Work with Finance Control, Data and Commercial teams to ensure contract changes, proposals etc are viable and actionable
• Creating Exec- and Board-ready outputs

Be lead finance partner with our Director of BD – helping to assess potential target acquisitions including:

• Provide critical thinking around the strategic value of such investments 
• Reviewing any financial information relating to targets
• Review / produce modelling to consider future prospects of targets – including any potential synergies with the existing business 
• Take part in discussions with target management teams 
• Support in any due diligence processes – reviewing financial information and collating summarised views of risks and opportunities linked to the acquisition 

• We’re looking for creative big thinkers with small egos to achieve our ambitious plans.
• You’ll bring experience in a commercial finance or business partnering role, experience in contract terms and negotiation advantageous but not required
• You will be proactive with a can-do attitude.
• You will have the ability to work at pace and energy within a growth environment – balancing the needs of multiple senior stakeholders.
• A team player with a ‘roll your sleeves up’ attitude of your own, you’ll be used to thinking laterally to solve problems and challenges, and will have a passion for making meaning out of data.
• Similarly, it’s vital that you bring an innate ability to distil and communicate results of complex analysis clearly and effectively to all levels of the business. Including being confident to present regularly at an Exec level
• Working independently within tight deadlines, you’ll use your understanding of best-in-class stakeholder management and proactive partnering skills to ensure your team’s insights are used to optimise business success.

Enjoy fantastic perks like private healthcare & dental insurance, a generous work from abroad policy, 2-for-1 share purchase plans, extra festive time off, and excellent family-friendly benefits. 

We prioritise career growth with clear career paths, transparent pay bands, personal learning budgets, and regular learning days. Jump on board and supercharge your career from day one! 

Our values represent the things that matter most to us and what we live and breathe everyday, in everything we do: 

💭 Think Big - We're building the future of rail 

✔️ Own It - We focus on every customer, partner and journey 

🤝 Travel Together - We're one team 

♻️ Do Good - We make a positive impact 

Interested in finding out more about what it's like to work at Trainline? Why not check us out on LinkedIn, Instagram and Glassdoor! 

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