Finance

What we do

Around 800 finance professionals across the globe are broadly divided into local and global teams. Consider that our net revenues in 2008 were over £5 billion and you can get a sense of the scale at which we work. Every country in which we operate has a local finance function. Meanwhile our global finance function is based at Global HQ in Slough, UK.

Together, these finance teams work on all aspects of finance - from tax planning to cost forecasting - to ensure we deliver maximum shareholder value. We influence and measure business performance across the full range of value drivers. We also have the responsibility of secure data integrity and compliance throughout the organisation.

How we do it

The success we’ve achieved so far is largely down to the quality of our people. We make sure that our finance professionals are highly skilled and less constrained by process than in many businesses. Like everyone at RB, they are encouraged to challenge accepted wisdom and suggest new ways to add value. Our local finance teams are responsible for accounting, providing business support and guidance, and helping to manage local profit and loss accounts. Local finance also includes roles supporting the business teams such as supply, sales and marketing.

In global finance, teams can be either specialist or generalist. Specialists are experts in areas such as tax, treasury, M&A, legal, investor relations and internal audit. Our generalists are responsible for either compliance & control, or for business planning and support. As a generalist you should expect to move between global and local functions as your career develops, which means international opportunities are available over the long-term.

Challenges we face

Our major challenge involves broadening the scope of finance across the business as a whole. We want to make transactional work run ever more efficiently, so we can increase our focus on helping the company achieve its strategic goals.

We need to consider ever-changing internal and external factors, plus there is a constant need to manage the City’s expectations about shareholder return. And as we can be aggressively acquisitive when we believe our business will benefit, we are also deeply involved in the continuing search for suitable M&A targets.

What you’ll need

The people who join us in finance are best-in-class. Robust, responsible and focused, they have impressive technical ability matched by full accountancy qualifications (where they are the country norm). To join them you will need to bring a keen attention to detail without losing sight of the bigger, commercial picture.

Being responsible is good, being risk-averse is not. You’ll be able to share your ideas even with non-technical audiences, and drive real business insights. You’ll relish debate, think creatively, thrive on challenge and have the ability to take decisive action. After all, we’re a FTSE 25 company, and we expect our finance professionals to have the appropriate stature and potential.

Do the numbers add up for you? Take a look at a typical career path.