Cherry Professional are delighted to be acting as retained partners to the Hillarys Group for the appointment of their Head of Finance to be based in Colwick, Nottinghamshire . The Hillarys Group comprises the direct to consumer Hillarys and Thomas Sanderson brands, the markets leading national made to measure window furnishings businesses and Arena and Customwest two of the leading B2B businesses in the UK market. The group is fully vertically integrated employing over 1500 staff across 6 UK sites with an additional 1100 sales and installation advisors operating across the UK. The group visits approximately half a million homes a year selling, manufacturing and then installing close to 2 million bespoke products. In 2017 the group was acquired by Hunter Douglas, the world's leading blinds business (worldwide revenue of $3.5bn). The Hillarys group is one of the largest and fastest growing of its European businesses. HD has a number of other UK operations in the blinds industry and Hillarys has been asked to take the lead in identifying and delivering operational synergies across this wider group. Turnover in the group has doubled in the last 6 years to £275m and strategic plans have been put in place to grow to £400m in the next 6 years. Historically the group has invested behind its commercial decision support / business partnering functions. Now, following the acquisition of TS in 2018 and with greater involvement in two other HD activities being announced in Jan 2019, a focus on change is now required in the operational finance team and will impact areas such as financial planning consolidation and reporting, cost and process control, treasury, tax planning and payroll. As Head of Finance , you will be tasked with developing the operational finance department into a wider group function in order to support the wider business strategy. You will be expected to: Provide leadership to the Finance and Accounting strategy. The goal being to review and develop the group's operational financial processes and controls in order to build a group financial function capable of supporting the changing business structure. Manage the financial integration and/or consolidation of future acquisitions, using the right blend of shared services and local activity appropriate for each business case. Take the lead stakeholder management role over the following relationships: HD's group accounting function - covering financial reporting, tax planning and internal audit matters. External auditors and professional advisors covering both the audit process, tax advice and all reporting or accounting policy changes. Working with the FP&A manager, develop the planning function into a multi-business process in order to provide individual business and group profitability insight. Take ultimate responsibility for delivering the annual budgeting process. Contribute to the development of the Group's overall strategy, challenging assumptions and decision-making as appropriate and providing financial insight into the operational implications of these plans within the finance function. As the Head of Finance , it is expected that you will have extensive experience in group consolidation and reporting roles with an emphasis in business process improvement in an ERP environment. You will have a solid finance background ideally with an ACA qualification and audit practice experience. In addition 7 years experience in industry within a finance reporting role ideally within a group consolidation team. You will be commercially astute, articulate, technically strong, dynamic, insightful and an influential leader, with the ability to operate at both strategic and operational levels. You will have experience of using and developing integrated ERP systems in fast moving industries. You will be excited by the prospects of being able to develop and lead a change programme in a relatively small team with reasonable autonomy whilst being willing to role your sleeves up when needed to achieve success. PLEASE NOTE ALL THIRD-PARTY APPLICATIONS WILL BE SENT DIRECTLY TO CHERRY PROFESSIONAL.