Finance Director

About the role

dnata Travel is recruiting a Finance Director for its Gold Medal Travel business in Leyland, Lancashire. Reporting to the Managing Director with a dotted line to the VP Business Finance, you will be a strategic partner to the leadership team, providing commercial insight, financial control and governance. The position is on-site at the Gold Medal Travel office in Leyland.

Key responsibilities

• Act as a strategic and commercial partner to the Managing Director, influencing investment decisions and growth strategy
• Lead the end-to-end financial planning cycle, including budgets, forecasts and long-range plans
• Own delivery of EBITDA, PAT and cash flow targets
• Oversee management reporting, including monthly management accounts, forecasts, variance analysis, KPIs, cash flow and quarterly balance sheet reporting
• Maintain a strong financial control environment, supporting clean internal and external audits and timely statutory reporting
• Interface with Group Finance, auditors and regulators, including the CAA relationship and ATOL licence requirements
• Ensure regulatory, legal, tax and HMRC compliance, including Senior Accounting Officer sign-off
• Lead treasury, cash flow forecasting, liquidity management, working capital optimisation and banking relationships
• Identify and mitigate liquidity, credit and foreign exchange risks
• Lead O2C and P2P processes, drive standardisation, automation and ERP governance, and support business transformation initiatives
• Develop talent and build a high-performance finance culture

Required profile

• Professional accounting qualification (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent)
• Significant post-qualified experience, including a senior finance leadership role
• Experience leading multi-functional finance teams and at senior leadership level, with board-level engagement
• Background in financial control, reporting, FP&A and cash management
• Experience in a large, complex global matrix organisation and shared services environment
• Strong commercial acumen, stakeholder management and influencing skills

Required skills

• Financial control, reporting and FP&A
• Cash management and treasury
• ERP and reporting tools

An advantage is experience in travel, aviation or services, regulatory engagement, finance transformation and ERP projects, and improving profit-to-cash conversion. The role comes with a competitive remuneration package.