Welcome to AALTO, a global leader in Stratospace. Based in Farnborough, AALTO is an Airbus subsidiary that manufactures, operates, and delivers services with its solar-powered, stratospheric platform: Zephyr.

Zephyr’s persistence enables continuous flight for months at a time. Its current flight-time record of over 67 days in the stratosphere. From above 60,000+ft, or 20km above ground, AALTO can deliver several applications including direct-to-device connectivity and high-resolution Earth observation.

AALTO operates in a new operational layer between most of air traffic and low-Earth orbit, Stratospace. This is where high-altitude platforms led by Zephyr deliver services to commercial and government partners. We can help monitor environments, observe borders, track natural disasters and connect unconnected communities.

Join us as we create a new domain of aerospace: Stratospace. You’ll be part of a highly-skilled, innovative and passionate group of people – Team AALTO. Together, we can Unlock Stratospace.

Job Purpose:

This is a 6 month Fixed Term Contract

This is a mid-level position, reporting to the Director of Finance Business Partnering. The postholder will work closely with budget owners, members of the executive team and the wider finance function to support the delivery of high-quality financial insight, planning, and decision making.

This role will provide a robust and proactive business partnering service, offering strategic financial insight and guidance to stakeholders across the organisation.

Key responsibilities include supporting the creation and enhancement of monthly financial reporting, including insightful commentary, collaborating with budget holders to review cost centre performance and facilitating the annual budgeting and quarterly forecasting cycles. The postholder will play a critical role in driving financial accountability, enabling informed decision making and contributing to the continuous improvement of the Business Partnering team.

Responsibilities:

• Business Partnering - Act as a trusted and proactive business partner, advising on emerging financial trends, opportunities, and threats.

• Financial Modeling & Forecasting – collaborate and prepare financial planning tools and models to support budgeting, forecasting, and strategic planning processes.

• Strategic Support - Develop robust financial models, business cases, and presentations to support business decisions. Ensure due processes and policies are followed and all decisions face vigorous challenge and vetting.

• Stakeholder Communication - Clearly communicate complex financial information and recommendations to department heads, senior management, and other stakeholders. Working across multiple departments.

• Performance Reporting – Prepare and deliver monthly financial reports and commentary for cost centres and review variances to budgets and forecast. Understand risks to full year budgets and options to mitigate.

• Collaboration - Work closely with the Financial Control team to ensure accuracy of postings.

• Cost Analysis and Insight - Provide detailed cost analysis, commentary, and insight for to cost centre owners, for both overheads and projects providing guidance to support decision making.

• Board and Management Reporting - Support delivery of the monthly management reports and the Board materials.

• Process Improvements and System Development - Drive continuous improvement in financial processes and systems, including enhancements to D365 and other tools supporting budgeting, forecasting, and reporting.

Experience and Qualifications:

• Qualified accountant (CIMA, ACCA).
• Impactful, inquisitive, analytical, confident individual able to work in a fast-moving start up environment.
• Focused on continuous improvement to enhance finance processes.
• Focused on detail and ability to work with large amounts of data.
• Flexible and capable of dealing with month end duties as well ad-hoc financial analysis and forecasting.
• Comfortable dealing with senior stakeholders and able to articulate financial information to non-finance people.
• Expert use of Microsoft Excel and MS suite of products (Excel, PowerPoint etc).
• Previous use of accounting systems. Microsoft Dynamics preferable but not essential.

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