Finance Business Partner – EMEA Commercial

Waters; Wilmslow; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading specialty measurement company is seeking a Finance Business Partner for their EMEA Commercial team. This high-impact role will require providing business partnership and financial insights to support the EMEA organization. Candidates must have a degree in Finance, 7+ years of finance experience, and strong communication skills. The position is based in the UK or France and necessitates international mobility for career progression. The company emphasizes diversity and inclusion in its workforce.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in finance, with 3+ in a commercial role.
• Ability to work in diverse cultural settings.
• Experience in Life Sciences, Industrial or FMCG environments preferred.

Responsibilities

• Provide financial insights for EMEA business and partner with leadership.
• Drive forecasting and reporting for the Instruments business.
• Engage in transformations to optimize processes and tools.

Skills

Strong communication skills

Business analysis

Interpersonal skills

Experience in commercial finance

Proficiency in Microsoft Office

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, or Economics

MBA or professional-level Accounting qualification

Tools

Microsoft PowerPoint

Job description

Overview

Waters has an exciting and challenging opportunity for a Finance Business Partner - EMEA Commercial to provide business partnership, financial insights and analysis to support the EMEA business. This position is a member of the EMEA Finance Senior Leadership team, reporting to the Senior Director, Finance EMEA. This role is a high-visibility and high-impact role within the EMEA organization, interfacing daily with the EMEA Leadership team.

Based in either Paris, France or Manchester, UK, the successful candidate should be committed to international mobility to take advantage of career progression opportunities in both Finance and in the Commercial organization, which may require relocation.

Responsibilities

• Business Partnering: The role actively contributes to growing the Instruments business profitably, supporting the EMEA Commercial VP and EMEA Senior Finance Director, and working closely daily with the EMEA Director of Commercial Excellence and the EMEA Senior Director of Marketing. Owns the performance management process from strategic priorities setting, forecasting, variance and trend analysis. Input into long term strategic planning, annual planning, assessing business potential and transformation. Delivers strong financial support on strategic ad-hoc studies (partnership, business case, investment scenarios). Key focus on KPI’s, deep dive into business drivers, provide guidance, challenge plans, offer solutions, and ensure full buy-in of senior management. Ensures effective communication and understanding of the financial & business performance and drives the decision-making process (corrective plans).

• Forecasting and Reporting: Drive commercial and operational forecasting and reporting for the EMEA business, with particular focus on the Instruments business. Work closely with EMEA and regional-level senior management and Finance Leads, regularly updating forecasts and driving quarterly performance, including KPI’s. In addition, work with the EMEA Leadership team to prepare for Quarterly Business Review and Annual Planning meetings with the Divisional Leadership team and with the Executive Committee of the company.

• Transformation: Work with regional and global teams to harmonise processes and procedures and take advantage of new tools and reporting as we move to SAP S4/HANA in 2026.

• Leadership: Participate as a member of the EMEA Finance Leadership team, actively engaging to help build an organization that successfully partners with the business in helping to meet our operational and strategic objectives.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field, or comparable professional background.
• MBA or professional-level Accounting qualification, or comparable background, or equivalent experience, preferred.

Experience

• 7+ years’ experience, of which 3+ years’ working in a commercial Finance role in a large organization, ideally in Life Sciences, or an Industrial or FMCG environment.
• Experience partnering with commercial organizations, possessing a comprehensive grasp of the priorities, levers and dependencies of those teams.
• Past experience in a fast-paced environment, ability to adapt and deal with ambiguity.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office, PowerPoint and other business software.
• Experience of working within a diverse cultural setting.

Competencies

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to partner with and present to senior executives.
• Ability to work within a complex matrix structure.
• Strong business, analytic and technical competence.

Key Behaviours

• Authentic - Operates with integrity, transparency, and humility
• Enterprise Minded - Acts as a true company owner to advance the overall organization interests
• Outside-In Problem solver - Carries a broad global perspective of markets, technologies, and trends
• Agile - Balances clear critical thinking and accountability in execution to deliver results
• People Focused - Actively creates the conditions for Waters’ people and teams to succeed.

We're actively building diverse teams and welcome applications from everyone. But simply having a diverse workforce is not enough. We aim to build an inclusive environment where everyone can contribute their best work and develop to their full potential. We celebrate our differences and recognise the importance of teams reflecting the communities they serve.

We can make reasonable adjustments to our interview process according to your needs.

Company Description

Waters Corporation (NYSE: WAT), the world's leading specialty measurement company, has pioneered chromatography, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis innovations serving the life, materials, and food sciences for over 60 years. With approximately 8,000 employees worldwide, Waters operates directly in 35 countries, including 15 manufacturing facilities, with products available in more than 100 countries. Our team focuses on creating business advantages for laboratory-dependent organizations to enable significant advancement in healthcare delivery, environmental management, food safety, and water quality.

Working at Waters enables our employees to unlock the potential of their careers. Our global team is driven by purpose. We strive to be better, learn and improve every day in everything we do. We’re the problem solvers and innovators that aren’t afraid to take risks to transform the world of human health and well-being. We’re all in it together delivering benefit as one to provide the insights needed today in order to solve the challenges of tomorrow.

Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to our core values at Waters Corporation. It is our responsibility to actively implement programs and practices to drive inclusive behavior and increase diversity across the organization. We are united by diversity and thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our products, our customers and our community. Waters is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or protected Veteran status.