Finance Director – Product Development

Overview

As Finance Director for Product Development, you will act as the senior finance partner to the Product Development leadership team, guiding financial planning, cost intelligence, and performance governance across the end-to-end vehicle portfolio. You will lead a multidisciplinary finance group to safeguard value, support strategic investment, and enable timely, data-driven decisions. Your role shapes product-cost strategy and investment governance in a luxury, high-performance brand context. This is a chance to drive financially disciplined, value-led product plans that balance technology, quality and profitability.

Pay / Benefits

• Structured career development framework
• 25 days’ holiday plus bank holidays
• Enhanced company pension scheme
• Discretionary annual bonus
• Private medical insurance and health cash plan
• Life assurance benefit

Responsibilities

• Oversee portfolio financial governance for vehicle-related programmes, ensuring robust business cases aligned with corporate strategy and shareholder value
• Manage engineering and programme investment including capex, tooling, prototypes, validation and supplier development costs with clear baselines and approvals
• Improve finance processes and digital reporting to provide timely, traceable data and a single source of truth for programme decisions
• Provide independent financial assurance at gateways and design reviews, quantifying cost, margin, cash and ROI implications before commitment
• Maintain financial risk and opportunity management across the portfolio (currency, commodities, obsolescence, changes, delays, warranty)
• Partner with Product Strategy, Engineering, Design, Programme Management, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Quality, Commercial and Supply Chain to align requirements and secure an executable plan
• Ensure strong financial controls, accounting treatment, audit evidence and governance for programme expenditure, capitalization and reporting

Key requirements

• Qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent) with substantial post-qualification senior finance leadership experience
• Extensive automotive product development or capital-intensive manufacturing background; luxury/high-performance automotive preferred
• Solid understanding of vehicle-development lifecycle, gateways, tooling, prototypes, validation and start-of-production readiness
• Proven track record in leading multi-year product business cases, investment governance, cost management and ROI analysis
• Advanced financial modelling, forecasting and management reporting; ability to link technical assumptions to cost and enterprise value
• Experience with FP&A, budgeting, rolling forecasts, scenario modelling and executive performance reporting
• Strong stakeholder influence with ability to challenge assumptions and present at senior governance forums
• Knowledge of financial controls, capitalization principles, audit requirements and risk management in a programme-led environment
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams across Cost Engineering, Business Planning and FP&A
• Proficiency with ERP and planning/BI tools; experience in improving programme-finance data and reporting

• Influential leadership
• Strategic thinking and analytical reasoning
• Clear and assertive communication with executives
• Advanced financial modelling
• Scenario analysis and forecasting
• Management reporting

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