Our client is a major international retail organisation with an established presence across the Middle East. As part of its continued development in Jordan, the business is seeking an accomplished commercial finance leader to join its senior management team.
This is a highly influential leadership appointment with responsibility for business planning, commercial performance, financial strategy and operational decision support.
Working closely with the General Manager and senior functional leaders, the successful candidate will help shape the direction of the business, challenge commercial assumptions and ensure that strategic decisions are supported by robust financial and operational insight.
The Opportunity
The Head of Commercial Finance & Business Performance will act as a strategic partner to the leadership team, providing the commercial intelligence required to drive profitable growth, improve operational efficiency and strengthen overall business performance.
This is not a traditional financial-control or accounting position. The role requires a commercially astute leader who can look beyond the numbers, understand the operational drivers behind performance and translate complex information into clear business priorities.
You will bring together financial planning, commercial analysis and operational performance, helping the organisation make better decisions across sales, profitability, investment, productivity, cost management and long-term growth.
Key Responsibilities
- Act as a trusted strategic and commercial adviser to the General Manager and senior leadership team.
- Lead the annual business-planning, budgeting, forecasting and long-range planning processes.
- Translate the organisation’s strategic objectives into measurable financial and operational priorities.
- Evaluate business performance across sales, margin, profitability, costs, productivity and customer-related measures.
- Provide forward-looking commercial insight rather than solely reporting historical results.
- Identify emerging risks, performance gaps and opportunities for profitable growth.
- Challenge commercial and operational assumptions constructively, ensuring major decisions are supported by reliable analysis.
- Lead scenario planning, investment appraisals, feasibility assessments and business-case development.
- Partner with operational leaders to improve performance, resource allocation and commercial accountability.
- Support strategic decisions relating to pricing, promotions, product performance, cost optimisation and capital investment.
- Establish and maintain meaningful performance indicators across the organisation.
- Present clear, concise and commercially relevant recommendations to senior stakeholders.
- Strengthen financial understanding among non-finance leaders and embed a performance-led culture throughout the business.
- Ensure effective financial governance, internal controls and risk-management practices.
- Lead, develop and mentor members of the finance and performance team.
The Person
We are seeking a credible and commercially sophisticated finance leader with the confidence to operate as part of a senior management team.
The successful candidate is likely to offer:
- Substantial leadership experience within commercial finance, FP&A, business performance or strategic finance.
- Previous experience operating at Head of Finance, Commercial Finance Director, Senior FP&A Manager or equivalent level.
- A recognised professional accounting qualification or an advanced degree in finance, accounting, economics or a related discipline.
- Strong experience gained within retail, consumer goods, hospitality, distribution or another complex customer-focused organisation.
- Demonstrable ownership of budgeting, forecasting and strategic business-planning processes.
- A strong understanding of the relationship between commercial activity, operational performance and financial outcomes.
- Experience advising senior executives and influencing significant business decisions.
- Advanced financial modelling, scenario-planning and investment-appraisal capability.
- The ability to challenge senior stakeholders constructively while maintaining strong working relationships.
- A track record of improving profitability, productivity, cost control or operational performance.
- Strong people-leadership and team-development capabilities.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills.
- Fluency in English, with Arabic highly advantageous.
Experience within a multinational, regional group or large-scale retail environment would be particularly valuable.
