Director of Finance

Job Description

Parkinson Lee Executive Search, part of the Elevation Recruitment Group are to be acting as retained partner to The Medical Protection Society (MPS) in the appointment of a Director of Finance.

The Company

MPS is the world’s leading protection organisation for doctors, dentists and healthcare professionals. As a not-for-profit mutual organisation, MPS supports the professional interests of more than 300,000 members globally. 
Membership provides access to expert advice and support together with the right to request indemnity for complaints or claims arising from professional practice. These include clinical negligence claims, complaints, medical and dental council inquiries, legal and ethical dilemmas, disciplinary procedures, inquests and fatal accident inquiries.
The organisation employs more than 800 members of staff split across three offices in the UK, with additional staff based in Australia and New Zealand. MPS has undergone significant change in recent years in order to ensure it continues to provide a valued and world-class service to our members. 

The role

• The overarching purpose of this exciting role is two-fold: 
  To guide and assist the organisation in meeting their financial objectives
• To lead the Finance department, providing an extensive range of services and deliverables. This includes internal and external financial reporting; budgeting, analysis and performance monitoring; relevant financial, taxation and regulatory advice; income and payment processing; compensation and benefits services; internal control processes and systems, tax and other regulatory compliance, strategic planning, reporting and business development.

The Director of Finance will provide a quality service to all departments and lead the operations of the Finance department, ensuring the application of appropriate accounting controls to ensure the security of the company’s assets and accuracy in reporting the financial position. 
In addition, the successful candidate will lead an assessment of the current finance function and its outputs. They will be responsible for driving through change and efficiencies where appropriate to ensure the function is evolving commercially and has a culture of continuous improvement, aimed at supporting Senior Management and the wider organisation.
This opportunity has been created following the current post holder taking on a new challenge within the organisation.

• Responsibilities 
  Reporting to the Executive Director - Finance and Risk, key responsibilities include:
  Taking a proactive role in managing relationships between the department and key stakeholders, ensuring that targets are met and to continually assess how to improve service delivery (and to take steps to do so)
• Leading the Finance team to develop and ensure successful delivery of the overall Finance strategy and operational plan, demonstrating visible and effective leadership, ensuring high levels of performance from all team members. Undertake full performance management of direct reports, with wider supervision and guidance of key indirect reports as required. This includes allocation and review of work, overseeing training and development, and making decisions around workforce planning and people management issues across the department
• Overseeing the production of accurate and well-presented financial statements to a tight deadline
• Liaising with auditors throughout the year and provide clear supporting information to ensure an effective and efficient audit. Continually review ways to improve the speed of production and clarity of information
• Overseeing and reviewing the production of accurate monthly management accounts, including analysis of membership subscription income, legal costs and damages and administrative costs by department. Ensure these are provided to the Executive Director (Finance and Risk), Chief Executive and Senior Leadership Team as necessary, whilst continually reviewing ways to improve content, clarity, and speed of production
• Ensuring the efficient operation of all financial systems within MPS and the accurate recording of data, by constant review and improvement of these systems and internal controls
• Overseeing the budget process through leadership of the Finance Business Partner team and liaise with the Chief Executive and Executive Director (Finance & Risk) to produce accurate and timely budgets for subscription income, capital expenditure, administration costs by department and legal costs and damages
• Contributing fully as a member of the Senior Leadership Team through proactive involvement in strategic and operational meetings and liaising fully with the Executive team
• Working collaboratively across the Finance & Risk leadership team and be an active member of this group
• Ensuring information is accurate and payments are correct, by ensuring that appropriate data review mechanisms are in place and that the appropriate authorisation levels for payments to be are in place and regularly scrutinised
• Complying with applicable professional ethical guidance and all relevant internal rules, policy and procedures, including those relating to health and safety, data protection, IT security and all those contained within the issued staff handbook
• Undertaking other duties and tasks that from time to time may be required and that are appropriate to the role

Experience

• A qualified accountant with significant knowledge and experience of preparing financial statements, managing audits, operational systems and internal controls. In addition, a good knowledge of income tax, benefits in kind, pensions, corporation tax, capital gains tax and VAT is also important
• Previous experience of leading and managing a Finance function, ideally in a Financial Services environment
• Capability to build effective relationships across the organisation
• Strong people management skills with an ability to adopt a coaching style and motivate
• Ability to engage and challenge at all levels; strong influencing skills coupled with tenacity and resilience
• Demonstrable track record of working collaboratively across organisations
• An understanding of key business issues and challenges and is able to respond decisively, making decisions and finding solutions which will have a positive outcome
• A business development focus with an ability to turn research into actions
• Strong presentation skills with the ability to deliver on a range of topics to a wider range of audiences

This is an outstanding, career-defining opportunity which will allow the successful candidate to make an immediate and positive impact within the organisation, playing a key role in the future success and growth of MPS.

For a confidential conversation about this opportunity please call Parkinson Lee Executive Search on 01709 303 330 or click apply.

Please note that Parkinson Lee Executive Search are acting as retained partners to The Medical Protection Society on this assignment and therefore any unsolicited third party CVs will be sent directly to them.

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