Job Description :

About Us

At Diageo, our purpose is to celebrate life everywhere, every day. To do that, you will join an organization that is passionate about customers and consumers, and proud of what they do. Diageo teams constantly set high goals and then try hard to exceed them. We are also an incredibly diverse organization, and we value each and every one’s talent and personality.

Innovation is now in its exciting fourth chapter of its evolution, with focus to accelerate our performance and deliver Diageo’s 2030 goals. Innovation has always been a strategic growth engine for Diageo that already delivers scale and sustainable growth across markets and brands with exciting plans for the future.

Purpose

The Head of Innovation Finance (Europe) is finance business partner to Europe and Africa’s Innovation Leadership Team (Innovation General Manager and 2 x Regional Innovation Directors), wider Innovation team and Europe and Africa market leadership.

This role leads the Innovation Finance Team, the finance point of contact across both Europe and Africa, primarily decision support and business partnering, as well as performance management for all innovation launched in Europe and Africa. As the leader you will be responsible for providing financial expertise to influence sound decision making, plan with the Innovation Leadership to ensure appropriate prioritization and alignment to business needs and provide transparent financials and insights to internal and external partners. Identifying and demonstrating internal and external trends, this dynamic role has a broad scope of opportunity. It leads the Innovation Finance Team to be great Business Partners driving exceptional project outcomes, help shape regional innovation category strategy, and drive valuable and actionable performance management insights. As a leader you will be responsible for providing financial expertise & insights, training & management, strategic thought-leadership, and building/maintaining relationships across Europe and Africa markets. This role reports to the Global Innovation Finance Director and leads a team of four finance professionals.

Complexity of role

High degree of exposure to leadership and cross-functional teams across Europe and Africa (both demand and supply) as well as global counterparts. Requires cross-functional Innovation collaboration and intra-market relationships to continue to drive the successful business outcomes of Innovation.

Be able to operate and balance short-term financial governance and longer-term critical thinking and planning, and input on the wider Global Innovation finance agenda. Balance multiple priorities, Executive business partnering and supporting Regional & Global Innovation agenda.

Key outputs / ResultsInnovation Strategy

· Strategic planning, partner with Innovation Leadership team to build/maintain and influence the 3-year rolling plan for Europe and Africa Innovation (e.g. current financial year, next financial year, rolling 24-36 month pipeline)

· Connecting role to ensure Innovation plans are meeting partner needs across Executive teams in Europe and Africa, BU Leadership Teams, BU Finance Teams, Supply, Global Innovation, Marketing/Brand Finance

· Prepare strategic plan inputs and Innovation contributions to annual strategy reviews and other presentations

In year Innovation execution, planning and forecasting

· Lead aspects of financial governance of projects, in-conjunction with markets, supporting teams in their decision-support efforts and communicate opps and risks effectively across range of partners

· Support the creation of bi-annual New Launch Pipeline plans, re-forecasting & tracking

· Connect with markets to ensure Innovation is appropriately planned and resource is allocated to ensure the success of launches

Budget owner & control

· Plan and secure annual Innovation budget of c.$9m for project R&D across Europe and Africa. Supervise to ensure ongoing spend is maintained as planned

· Coordinate regular spend outlooks by partnering with non-finance budget owners, driving M&E and productivity at all times

· Propose project budget re-allocations where under or overspends are identified in partnership with Innovation Leadership Team

· Act as advisor for range of non-finance/finance related queries

Performance Management and Reporting

· Track Innovation product actual performance vs. expectations and influence action & insights within Europe and Africa market work-day sessions

· Lead Internal BPM processes with Regional Innovation Exec

· Input content for Europe, Africa and Global Innovation Market/Region/Global Exec presentations

· Work with data governance teams to ensure SAP mapping is up to date to support market reporting

Financial control

· Key point of contact (and coach to Innovation Finance Team) to advise on accounting treatment of various issues that arise on projects, e.g. classification of spend, capital or project expenditure

· Ensure innovation budget is being spent on allowable expenditure and is correctly accounted for, e.g. advising on appropriate accounting period based on progress of receipt of goods/services

· Maintain outstanding financial controls in the end-to-end innovation process, including upholding delegated authorities for project expenditure (e.g. underwrites), preventative controls for improving financial outcomes from innovation, e.g. setting and holding teams to account for GM% and COGS targets

· Complete project reviews and underwrite approvals in Planview within delegated authority limit

Global Initiatives

· Working with the Global Innovation Finance Director and directly with the Chief Innovation Officer to lead critical initiatives to improve business outcomes.

· Responsible for key global sprints, including the transformation of innovation performance management (reporting and tracking, using new data sources, tools, systems) and process change and improvements (SKU flagging automation, Voyager implementation) to aim to better outcomes.

· Relationship owner on the Finance Innovation Leadership Team for key external relationships globally i.e. IWSR and BCG, driving insights around our market share and coordinating the roll out of the innovation incrementally tool globally.

Team Leadership

· Inspire, set direction and Lead the development and careers of four L5 Finance Managers, critical talent pipeline for Europe and Africa finance

Qualifications / Experience

· 10+ years professional experience, with a great foundation in finance, demonstrating career advancement and growing responsibilities

· Strategic approach, with excellent analytical and problem solving skills

· Commercial Finance/Project Finance background with ability to spot opportunities and risks

· Finance experience in consumer goods, beverage alcohol preferred

· Great teammate and inspiring leader

· Operate efficiently with ambiguity

· Ability to influence partners with a wide variety of seniority and functional experience

Flexible Working Statement:

Flexibility is key to our success. From part-time and compressed hours to different locations, our people work flexibly in ways to suit them. Talk to us about what flexibility means to you so that you’re supported from day one.

Worker Type :

Regular

Primary Location:

1HQ

Additional Locations :

Job Posting Start Date :

2025-06-12