Finance Business Partner

Brightwater Recruitment; Dublin; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Brightwater Recruitment is seeking a Finance Business Partner who will bridge finance and business operations. You will provide proactive analysis, challenge assumptions, and support strategic decisions to help business units meet their financial targets.

You will own budgeting, quarterly forecasts, and longer-range planning, delivering clear reports and dashboards that illuminate performance drivers and inform management discussions. The role emphasizes cost control and financial storytelling.

Qualifications

• 5–7+ years in finance, with 2–3 years in business partnering.
• Fully qualified accountant (ACA/ACCA/CIMA or equivalent).
• Proven experience partnering with business units to drive financial insights.

Responsibilities

• Own budgeting, quarterly forecasting, and long-range planning for assigned units.
• Perform variance, trend and cost-benefit analyses to identify risks and opportunities.
• Build financial reports and dashboards and present insights to leadership.
• Support senior leadership with monthly business reviews and performance reviews.
• Collaborate with FP&A to align planning processes and improve forecasting accuracy.
• Monitor spend and enforce cost control measures across units.

Skills

Finance partnering

Stakeholder management

Budgeting

Forecasting

Variance analysis

Cost control

Presentation skills

FP&A collaboration

Education

Fully qualified accountant (ACA/ACCA/CIMA)

Tools

Excel

Job description

The Finance Business Partner will be responsible for bridging the gap between finance and the business operations. This role will provide proactive, insightful financial analysis, challenge assumptions, and support strategic decision-making to help business units achieve their financial objectives and contribute to the organisation's overall success. It will be instrumental in fostering a strong financial culture and ensuring performance transparency.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the go-to finance contact and trusted adviser for a set of business unit leaders and their teams.
• Get close to the business — understanding each unit's strategy, day-to-day challenges, and financial pressure points.
• Sit in on leadership meetings for your business units, bringing a financial lens to discussions and pushing back on commercial decisions when needed.
• Own the budgeting, quarterly forecasting, and longer-range planning cycles for your assigned units, with particular attention to cost management.
• Dig into the numbers through variance, trend, and cost-benefit analysis to surface both risks and opportunities.
• Translate financial data into practical, easy-to-act-on recommendations that help unit leaders improve performance and control costs.
• Work hand-in-hand with the FP&A Manager to keep planning processes joined up, share what you're seeing on the ground, and help sharpen forecasting accuracy over time.
• Help run core performance review activities, from monthly business reviews to senior leadership check-ins and other recurring reporting cycles.
• Build and present financial reports and dashboards that tell a clear story about performance, the drivers behind it, and what's coming next.
• Keep a close eye on spend across your business units — flagging overspend, spotting savings opportunities, and pushing for tighter cost control.

Skills & Experience:

• 5–7+ years' experience in finance roles, including at least 2–3 years spent specifically in a business partnering capacity within a large or complex organisation (essential).
• Fully qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA, or equivalent), with solid post-qualification experience (essential).
• A track record of working alongside business units — delivering financial insight and helping run performance review processes.
• Hands-on experience across budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, and cost/expense control.
• Confident, polished presentation skills — a must for this role.
• A natural relationship-builder who can influence senior stakeholders and challenge them constructively, at every level of the organisation.