About the Role
The Senior Director, CEMEA Planning Center of Excellence Lead is a key leadership position within our Planning Center of Excellence (COE), reporting to the VP of Planning COE. This role is responsible for driving strategic direction and operational excellence in regional financial planning processes across the organization. The successful candidate will help develop and adopt a set of common practices across all regional teams, advocating for and gathering business requirements for their region while shaping unified solutions.
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The CEMEA Planning COE Lead will oversee critical partnership activities, driving consistency while respecting regional nuances in expense and revenue strategy, driver analysis, quality control, process governance, and analytics. This position requires a strategic thinker with strong leadership and relationship management skills, capable of overseeing the development and implementation of comprehensive regional planning strategies that align with overall organizational financial goals. The role involves optimizing planning processes, ensuring high-quality outputs, and providing data-driven insights to inform strategic decision-making at the regional level.
Essential Functions
- Deliver global transformation initiatives: design, build, and deploy standardized solutions.
- Regional Planning Operationalization and Execution: Lead the development and implementation of comprehensive regional planning strategies, ensuring alignment with organizational financial goals and consistency across regions, business units, and corporate functions.
- Cross-functional Leadership and Process Optimization: Drive projects to create and adopt global standards and solutions managing critical functions including expense strategy, driver analysis, quality control, and process governance. Continuously improve and standardize regional planning processes for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness in partnership with the regional teams and leaders.
- Stakeholder Collaboration and Insights Delivery: Partner with regional finance teams and other stakeholders to support their planning needs. Leverage data-driven insights and analytics to inform strategic decision-making and provide actionable recommendations. Shape and develop systems requirements.
- Quality Control and Governance: Establish and maintain robust quality control measures and governance frameworks for regional planning activities. Ensure accuracy and understanding of specific regional financial performance indicators, organizational structures, and market drivers.
- Ad-Hoc Ownership and Project Leadership: Own key deliverables and projects on behalf of the broader Planning COE agenda, driving a unified standard across all regions and teams.
- Change Management: Foster a culture of innovation across the Finance community. Quickly adjust planning strategies in response to changing business environments and organizational priorities, maintaining high performance and resilience.
- Talent Development: Lead and develop a team of 4 FTEs, providing coaching, mentoring, performance management, and career development. Foster a high-performing, inclusive culture while building capabilities, supporting succession planning, and ensuring team members are positioned for growth and increased responsibility.
The company requires at least 4 days in office, and expectations of these days will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.
Qualifications
- 15 or more years of experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or 12 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g., Masters, MBA, JD, or MD); PhD with 9+ years of experience.
- Proven experience in leading regional financial planning teams and processes within a large, complex organization.
- Strong understanding of expense strategy, driver analysis, quality control, and process governance in financial planning.
- Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to interpret complex financial data and provide actionable insights.
- Experience in implementing and optimizing planning processes across multiple regions and business units.
- Experience in driving innovation and digital transformation in financial planning processes.
