Principal Finance Business Partner

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Are you a problem solver, explorer, and knowledge seeker - always asking, “What if?”

If so, you may be the new team member we’re looking for. Because at SAS, your curiosity matters - whether you’re developing algorithms, creating customer experiences or answering critical questions. Curiosity is our code, and the opportunities here are endless.

**What we do**

We’re the leader in analytics. Through our software and services, we inspire customers around the world to transform data into intelligence. Our curiosity fuels innovation, pushing boundaries, challenging the status quo and changing the way we live.

**What you’ll do**

You will play a vital role influencing and enabling business strategy for SAS across the Middle East/Turkey/South Africa region, with the major focus on the software business. You will be a trusted financial partner to the business as demonstrated by a deep understanding of a software sales organization, customers and processes. Specifically, this role works with sales and the other business leaders in the region, together with financial leaders in other regions in a proactive manner, to drive business insights and support decision making through thought leadership, value add performance analysis, and recommendations. As such, you will be the link between the business and Finance leadership. This position will use both internal data as well as external information from different sources.

**As a Principal Finance Business Partner, you will**:

- Understand overall corporate strategy and business drivers in order to provide recommendations for critical decisions across the organization
- Develop a deep understanding of the critical success factors and business drivers for the organization
- Proactively investigate and prosecute opportunities to improve business wide productivity, efficiency, return on investment and alignment
- Support the implementation of new global systems, processes and policies, ensuring full adoption and that transparency, control and effective operations are maintained
- Build and maintain relationships with the Regional and Country leaders and their leadership teams
- Assess opportunities to accelerate business growth based on trends and analysis of performance
- Identify and provide strategies to mitigate financial risks to the business
- Challenge status quo by using data analysis to identify gaps and opportunities in performance measurements
- Acts as a leader within the budgeting and forecasting cycles to translate the strategy into the business drivers, while accounting for risks and opportunities
- Participate in deal reviews
- Propose solutions to business challenges along with the risks and opportunities associated with each decision
- Implement and conduct ongoing reviews to ensure Management has a consistent understanding of financial accounting policies, processes and practices
- Provide guidance for strategic and non-standard deal assessments, ensuring deals comply with accounting standards Support highly complex decisions, test hypotheses about business problems and quantify risk and opportunity costs
- Provide training, leadership, and assistance to the local country finance/sales operations teams ensure financial results are understood by Management

**What we’re looking for**:

- 5+ years with a senior financial position in a public multinational software and/or services organisation, actively supporting front line and international leadership as a trusted business partner
- Strong technical accounting skills in US GAAP
- Experience using financial and analysis tools, BI software, ERP systems and visualisation tools
- Ability to proactively establish and maintain effective working relationships across senior levels, functions and geographies
- High level influencing and negotiation skills, able to operate comfortably at all levels of the organisation and work equally well independently and as a leader or member of cross functional teams
- Recognise, understand, and use the value that different perspectives and cultures bring to an organisation
- Advanced commercial decision making skills to identify and address financial challenges with innovative solutions
- Excellent knowledge of Excel and MS Office suite
- Adaptable and comfortable working in a fast paced, dynamic environment, with the ability to adapt to changing priorities and deadlines
- Strong written and oral communications skills
- Bachelor’s degree and/or recognised professional qualification in Finance, Accounting or Economics is required.
- Experience in developing business cases
- Strong communication skills, able to present complex financial principles clearly to Finance and non
- Finance stakeholders
- Ability to work independently

**Other knowledge, skills and abilities preferred**:

- An MBA qualification and a strong understanding of ASC606
- Ability to uphold the values that are at the heart of the SAS culture:

- _ Accountable_- is responsible, does things