Rutherford Cross is delighted to be working on a retained basis with First Milk to appoint a Forecasting & Treasury Analyst.

The Company

First Milk is a wholly British farmer-owned dairy co-operative. The business produces award-winning cheddar, regional cheeses and dairy ingredients, and market fresh milk through collaborative milk sourcing and supply chain management services.

Following significant change in recent times, the business was able to report another year of solid progress, for the year ending March 2018. First Milk has a clear strategy in place to grow its cheese business and develop its fresh milk business, that provides milk sourcing services through long-term customer partnerships and growing sales volumes.

First Milk’s biggest cheese customer is Oruna, which supplies more than 40% of the hard cheese sold in British retailers and the largest buyer of cheese in the UK. First Milk has played a pivotal role in strengthening Ornua’s relationship with Sainsbury and helping securing new business.

First Milk has a key strategic partnership with Nestle, one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies. The business has been working with them for more than 13 years and is their largest UK supplier.

The most recent financial results show strong performance in line with expectations. Turnover increased by 22% to £252.7m, through both new business growth and higher selling prices.

Operating profit was £6.6m, lower than the previous year but in line with expectations, as the strategic objective is to maximise returns for the co-operative’s members. Capital investment continued at all sites with £3.2m spent on various projects to improve efficiency. The group’s balance sheet continues to strengthen, with net asset growth of £5.4m to £27.4m through; reducing pension deficit, continued investment in processing and continued profitable and cash generative growth of the business.

For the right candidate, this is an exceptional opportunity to join a growing, dynamic business with ambitious growth plans and contribute to its future success by playing a key role in its journey.

The Opportunity

The Forecasting & Treasury Analyst is a key role within the company’s finance function, working closely with the Head of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. This is a newly created post will ensure that responsibility is taken for the delivery of budgets and quarterly forecasts, as well as the proactive analysis of long-term cash flow. This individual must ensure budgets and forecast are produced accurately and in a timely manner, therefore allowing informed business decisions to be made to deliver a long term competitive milk price back to its farmers.

An overview of core responsibilities includes:

• Ensure annual budgets and quarterly forecasts are delivered accurately and by the required deadline
• Challenge and support key budget holders by attending review meetings and provide insight where required
• Ensure narrative supplied by key budget holders is supported by the budget outcome
• Support wider finance team to understand variances to budgets and forecasts
• Proactively seek to maintain and improve the budget and forecast process, ensuring the processes are fully documented, frequently reviewed and updated and communicated as appropriate
• Responsible for ensuring the business has sufficient cash for day to day cash management
• Overseeing the asset-based lending facility with the bank
• Work with the wider finance team to understand balance sheet movements so any significant items can be identified and treated accordingly within the daily cash flow
• Develop and produce weekly reporting for cash, ensure that these continuously updated and are met to reflect any business changes
• Produce month end ABL facility report analysing this against the latest forecast. Key variances should be explained and any future impacts understood
• Undertake any other duties relevant to the key tasks and responsibilities identified by the Head of Finance
• Work closely with Operational Finance colleagues in support of joined up financial solutions for the company
• Take responsibility for ad-hoc analysis, projects and reporting requests in relation to any budget or cash flow requirements

The Candidate

The role of Forecasting & Treasury Analyst requires a confident individual with experience of developing an understanding of a complex business, to identify value-add solutions to budgeting and cash-flow management processes. The successful candidate will be able to build effective relationships across Finance as well as with the Commercial, Supply Chain and Operations departments. This individual will have the determination to gain buy-in and influence these stakeholders across the business. The post-holder will feel comfortable, taking ownership and will have pro-active approach.

 A summary of the key candidate requirements are as follows:

 Preferably CIMA, ACCA or ACA qualified

• Highly numerate with strong IT and financial analysis skills
• Confident, self-motivated and works on own initiative, thriving in a fast-paced environment
• Possesses a can-do attitude and strong sense of ownership
• Attention to detail paramount
• Self-confident, driven and resilient
• Good time management skills and the ability to prioritise
• Focused and determined to achieve successful outcomes, using initiative as required
• Willingness to go beyond professional knowledge to demonstrate sound commercial judgement, generating creative innovative sustainable business solutions
• Influencing others to gain commitment to act, respected by colleagues
• Tactful and diplomatic, ensuring culture of confidentiality and trust is maintained
• Adapts style and behaviours to business demands, learns quickly and is energised by change – demonstrated can do will do attitude
• Dedicates self to meet customers’ expectations, proactively seeks feedback and uses it to continuously improve service and support.
• Takes ownership for building and maintaining effective working relationships
• Makes communication a priority to ensure no surprises. Clearly communicates and seeks inputs regarding ideas, plans and priorities.
• Proactively builds knowledge capability through sharing knowledge, ideas and expertise with colleagues and wider business. Works for the benefit of customers, suppliers and stakeholders
• Identifies and implements opportunities to maximise efficiencies and outputs, seeks to deliver consistent results through focusing on continuous improvement and bottom line results

Remuneration

Salary:                     £40,000 - £45,000 (depending on experience)

Pension:                  Employee’s contribution matched up to 5%

Holidays:                26 plus 8 public holidays

Life Cover:               BUPA single life policy

Working hours:      37 per week

Bonus:                      5% based on personal and company performance