Unilever Food Solutions Finance Manager

ABOUT FOOD SOLUTIONS  (UFS)

Act like a founder, be part of a Winning team, accelerate your growth, stay ahead of the curve, enjoy the journey: JOIN UFS

Unilever Food Solutions (UFS) is the 2nd largest Business Unit of Unilever, is one of the 3 Power brands of the Foods Business Group, and a global market leader in Food Service. We are an independent Global Business Unit that operates in over 76 countries, and employs ~4000 employees. We have a unique B2B business model focused on serving chefs and our purpose is to free them to love what they do.

We at UFS have a bold and clear ambition and strategy in place for 2030 with a bold ambition on turnover and profitability, by being the best solution provider to our growing operator base. We plan to do this via a product first focus on superiority, by becoming the leader in AI powered Customer experience and by nurturing a Winning culture. We have had a history of delivering with excellence and resilient performance in the past few years. We also strive to stay 3 steps ahead in the industry. For example, our Future Menus Report identifies emerging culinary trends, making us a trendsetter for inspiring innovative solutions for chefs worldwide. 

We have a culture of caring deeply not just for our business but also for our people. We foster an entrepreneurial culture built on speed, simplicity, trust, and a deep hunger to grow. Our people thrive on their roles being empowered and end to end - across all functions. We also invest heavily in building future skills and leaders. Our People agenda of Accelerate-Grow-Thrive consistently helps us lead in employee engagement, with scores exceeding Unilever scores across all dimensions and being one of the most engaged teams at Unilever. 

Here, you will continuously learn, unlearn, and relearn, challenging yourself to accelerate your development in an end-to-end business and in end-to-end roles.If you're dreaming of contributing to Unilever’s 2nd largest Business unit, a fast-growing business, where you're empowered so you can play to win and thrive as part of One Team with One Goal, then come and join us!

Main job purpose

The world of FoodSolutions is a dynamic and exciting environment with passionate professionals who work hard to carry out their common ambition to “support, inspire, progress”. Our customers range from restaurants and hotels through to pub chefs and workplace, school or hospital caterers - as well as the wholesalers and cash and carries who service the foodservice industry.

Unilever Food Solutions (ufs.com) is the dedicated culinary foodservice business of Unilever which operates in more than 70 markets across the globe. The UFS portfolio consists of many of the world’s leading food brands like Knorr, Hellmann’s, Maille and The Vegetarian Butcher.

The purpose of the Finance person for Greece is to act and operate as the finance lead to the country with a total turnover responsibility of approximately €20mln.

The role offers an attractive balance between strategic and operational experiences, combined with leadership experience, including:

• Full Profit &Loss ownership and accountability
• Partner in-year target delivery of financial growth model
• Commercially shape the medium to long term strategy and direction of the portfolio and markets
• Being a member of the UFS Greece leadership team (Finance Lead)
• Part of the UFS Europe Finance team and as such, where needed, leading specific Finance topics for the broader Foodsolutions community
• In the post compass organisation, Greece is part of South Europe Performance Unit (PU). The Greece finance lead will have strict connection with the PU finance team

Key Interactions

The Finance person will interface with the following stakeholders:

• Managing Director UFS Greece
• Managing Director UFS South Europe PU 
• Greece UFS country managers
• Greece UFS Sales and Marketing teams
• UFS CD Operations Team
• UFS Finance Director Europe
• UFS South Europe Finance team
• UFS Central finance team
• Greece Controlling team

Key Accountabilities

Finance Lead for UFS Greece:

• Full financial leadership and accountability for UFS Greece as Finance Business Partner
• Deliver MCO results via dynamic P&L management and full P&L accountability
• Shape the commercial strategy and direction of the portfolio and markets, as a member of the Greece leadership
• Define priorities, identify opportunities, monitor risks
• Deliver in year and long term results via dynamic P&L management
• Be an effective and constructive business Partner to Greece managing director and leadership team
• Constructively challenge the performance to deliver competitive growth
• Responsible for accuracy of financial results and forecast
• Responsible for proper Trade Market Investment (TMI) budgeting, provisioning, and controlling; all in line with contracts
• Responsible for Brand Market Investment (BMI) and Overheads budgeting & control
• Establish, monitor, and maintain effective systems of risk management & internal control, including local internal audit activities, supported by Greece controller
• Look for continuous improvement & efficiency to further simplify reporting and forecasting processes
• Drive strategic Greece projects

Financial Growth Model (FGM):

• Support the teams with developing a sustainable business plan that can deliver competitive, profitable volume growth in line with the FGM
• Quantify and drive margin improvement / savings targets
• Evaluate risk and opportunities on margin to help prioritize cross functional team resources

Driving Return on Market Investment (ROMI) and Gross Margin (GM) improvement:

• Partner with marketing team to ensure optimal return on BMI
• Improve visibility and return on TMI
• Educate and provide tools to drive ROI on promotional activities
• Drive mix improvement initiatives

Strategic Pricing:

• Understand and communicate product cost changes impacting UFS Greece
• Drive pricing action to ensure proper material inflation coverage while maintaining competitiveness

Drive Finance Best Practice:

• Participate in cross country workstreams to drive best practice in key challenge areas such as ROMI (Digital & Traditional), Gross Margin, Overheads Efficiency, Customer Development Productivity etc.
• Proactively seek opportunities to share best practice within wider UFS Finance team and to learn from best practices of Countries/PUs

Project support:

• Support specific Greece/Europe projects as finance business partner

Leadership Behaviours

Standards of leadership applicable for this role:

Agility; being inquisitive and courageous Passion for high performance; deliver and takes accountability for a step up in UFS Greece performance on both top- and bottom line Business Acumen; quickly understanding and acting on a new business model (B2B) to create new opportunities and sustainable growth acceleration

These standards of leadership need to be demonstrated as follows:

• Understand and quickly adapt to the UFS environment
• Drive and support UFS Greece agenda
• Best practice sharing within UFS Finance team
• Provide key financial & strategic leadership within country/PU

Required Knowledge and Skills/ Experience required

• Degree in Finance, Management or a quantitative field (or equivalent experience), CIMA/ACCA qualification will be a significant advantage
• 3+ years experience in financial roles. Customer Finance experience is an advantage
• Excellent analytical and communication skills with ability to work under pressure
• Able to interact and collaborate effectively in a wide network of stakeholders
• Clarity of thinking – ability to see the big picture, whilst interested to dive into details
• Strong engagement, presentation and communication skills (both in Greek and English language)

Rewards & Benefits

• Hybrid way of working
• Competitive salary with performance-based bonuses
• Unlimited access to Unilever Learning Platform and Trainings that feels more like an adventure and less like a lecture
• Exciting team-building activities because we believe in having fun while achieving greatness
• Health and life insurance for you and your family
• Monthly allowance for lunch

CVs will be treated in strict confidentiality.

Candidates, who meet specified qualifications, will be contacted by e-mail or telephone.

Unilever is an organisation committed to equity, inclusion and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future, every day, for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions and drive inclusion across the business. At Unilever we are interested in every individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you! Thus if you require any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of your application so that we can support you through your recruitment journey.