Senior Finance Business Partner – Groceries – United Arab Emirates
We are looking for a Senior Finance Business Partner who will own the commercial finance function for our most complex operational vertical. Groceries operates in three countries with multiple subsidiary entities under two accounting standards.
In this role, you will define a standardised financial framework across all entities, build driver-based forecasting models from scratch, challenge growth assumptions and unit economics alongside the VP of Groceries, and lead the clean-up of fragmented financial data into reliable, automated reporting.
You will own target setting, rolling reforecasts, path-to-profitability modelling, and investor-ready narratives — acting as the single commercial finance voice for a vertical that currently lacks independent financial challenge. Financial Framework & Governance
In this role, you will define a standardised financial framework across all entities, build driver-based forecasting models from scratch, challenge growth assumptions and unit economics alongside the VP of Groceries, and lead the clean-up of fragmented financial data into reliable, automated reporting.
You will own target setting, rolling reforecasts, path-to-profitability modelling, and investor-ready narratives — acting as the single commercial finance voice for a vertical that currently lacks independent financial challenge. Financial Framework & Governance
- Define and enforce a standardised financial framework for Groceries across all entities and countries — including common KPI definitions, a contribution margin waterfall (CM1–CM5), and LFL vs non-LFL separation. Partner with subsidiary accounting teams and inDrive’s financial controllers to ensure the reporting infrastructure delivers clean, timely, and reconciled data that supports commercial decision-making.
- Lead business-side financial governance for grocery subsidiaries: coordinate audit support with subsidiary accounting teams, oversee the impact of the US GAAP transition on commercial metrics, and ensure consolidated reporting inputs are accurate and delivered on time. You do not own the accounting entries — you own the commercial integrity of what is reported.
- Challenge and validate reported revenue and cost actuals received from subsidiary teams before they feed into commercial models and forecasts — ensuring the numbers make commercial sense, flagging anomalies, and pushing back where source data is inconsistent or unexplained.
- Drive the clean-up and automation of Groceries financial data flows: partner with inDrive’s accounting team and subsidiary accountants to transition from manual, fragmented, spreadsheet-based reporting to structured, system-based data feeds that provide reliable actuals at the entity, geography, and store levels.
- Build and maintain the path-to-profitability model, including store maturity curves, private label margin impact, expansion scenarios, and 3–5 year forecasts.
- Own and challenge annual and quarterly revenue targets — building bottom-up from store-level driver assumptions, reconciling against top-down targets, and formally flagging where targets are not supported by operational reality.
- Own the annual Groceries budget, including revenue by entity, OPEX by cost centre, and CAPEX (dark store build-out), built from store-level drivers.
- Lead scenario modelling: quantify the impact of key growth levers (new store openings, private label, geographic expansion, frequency improvement) and provide the business with a range of outcomes, rather than a single point estimate.
- Own quarterly rolling reforecasts — updating driver assumptions based on the latest actuals, quantifying risks and opportunities, and providing management with a credible landing range.
- Track performance against budget and stretch targets, with early warning escalation when run rates indicate risk to quarterly or annual commitments.
- Automate consolidated forecasting within Workday Adaptive Planning and build Tableau dashboards for executive reporting.
- Commercially challenge the senior Groceries team on growth assumptions, unit economics, and investment cases — providing data-backed pushback when plans are not grounded in operational reality.
- Prepare investor-quality narratives for board and IPO workstreams, including the revenue growth story, path to profitability, unit economics improvement, and market expansion strategy.
- Translate complex, multi-entity operational performance into clear executive summaries for the C-suite and board.
- 7+ years experience in commercial finance, FP&A, or finance business partnering, with at least 2 years in a senior or lead role.
- 3+ years experience with darkstore/grocery/retail economics (GMV, take rate, contribution margin, store-level unit economics, fill rates, basket metrics) is a strong advantage.
- Big 4 advisory background or CIMA/ACCA qualification (or equivalent management accounting credential) strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated experience in multi-entity consolidation, ideally. across different accounting standards (IFRS/US GAAP).
- Post-acquisition integration experience strongly preferred: consolidating reporting from acquired entities, harmonizing KPI definitions, cleaning fragmented data.
- Strong financial modelling skills: able to build driver-based models from first principles in Excel – comfortable with a blank spreadsheet, not just inherited templates.
- Proven ability to commercially challenge Director-level business stakeholders – comfortable presenting data-backed recommendations and saying “no” when targets are unrealistic.
- Experience with Workday Adaptive Planning and/or Tableau is preferred but not required.
- People management experience: track record of developing junior finance professionals into commercially capable partners.
- Experience in audit coordination and financial governance across subsidiary entities.
- Strong communication skills: ability to translate complex financial analysis into clear recommendations for non-finance audiences and investor-grade narratives.
- Problem-solving orientation: hypothesis-driven, comfortable with ambiguity, can structure analysis without templates.
- Fluent English required. Additional languages (Russian, Spanish, Urdu) are a plus given our operating markets.
- Stable salary, official employment
- Health insurance
- Hybrid work mode and flexible schedule
- Relocation package offered for candidates from other regions
- Access to professional counseling services including psychological, financial, and legal support
- Discount club membership
- Diverse internal training programs
- Partially or fully paid additional training courses
- All necessary work equipment
