Manager - Commercial Finance

dentsuaegis; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 1,800,000 - 2,400,000; Full time

Job summary

Dentsu Aegis in Bangalore, India, seeks a Manager, Commercial Finance to oversee the agency's finance objectives across the portfolio and partner with the Finance VP to deliver key priorities.

The role leads a 7+ member team, driving pricing, revenue and profitability management, contract reviews, and governance while collaborating with Accounts, Operations, FP&A and other finance teams to strengthen client relationships and ensure performance against targets.

Qualifications

• Experience leading a finance team.
• Strong partnership across business functions (Sales, Ops, FP&A).
• Ability to analyze complex financial data and drive decisions.

Responsibilities

• Lead commercial finance activities across practices, including pricing and profitability management.
• Mentor and develop a 7+ person team across multiple brands.
• Ensure accuracy, compliance and timely delivery of all finance activities.
• Support complex business issue resolution and stakeholder escalations.
• Build partnerships with onshore stakeholders and cross-functional teams.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Financial analysis

Pricing strategy

Revenue & profitability management

Contract reviews

AR oversight

Job description

The Manager, Commercial Finance will be responsible for overseeing commercial finance objectives across the agency's portfolio while supporting the Finance Vice President in delivering key departmental financial priorities. This role serves as a critical business partner, maintaining strong client relationships and ensuring that financial expectations, commitments, and performance metrics are effectively communicated, monitored, and managed.

The role requires close collaboration with Account Management, Operations, Media Activation, FP&A, Controllers, and Commercial Finance teams to drive business performance, ensure compliance with contractual requirements, strengthen client relationships, and achieve organizational financial targets.

In addition to managing a designated portfolio of practice-level commercial finance responsibilities, the Manager will lead and oversee an extended team of 7+ commercial finance professionals supporting multiple brands and practices. The individual will be accountable not only for the timely and accurate delivery of their own work but also for ensuring the quality, accuracy, efficiency, and consistency of deliverables across the broader team. The role demands strong people leadership, coaching, stakeholder management, and operational oversight capabilities.

Key areas of responsibility include, but are not limited to:

• Leading commercial finance activities across assigned practices, including pricing, revenue and profitability management, contract reviews, commercial governance, accounts receivable (AR) oversight, client margin management, and intercompany recharge processes.
• Managing, mentoring, and developing a team of commercial finance professionals across multiple brands and practices.
• Ensuring accuracy, compliance, and timely delivery of all commercial finance activities performed by the team.
• Providing guidance and support in resolving complex business issues, managing escalations, and driving effective decision-making.
• Building and maintaining strong partnerships with onshore stakeholders and cross-functional teams to support business objectives.
• Driving process improvements, operational excellence, and adherence to financial controls and governance standards.

This position is part of the Americas Planning & Reporting Centre of Excellence (PRCoE) based in Bangalore, India, and reports directly to the Associate Director, Americas Planning & Reporting Centre of Excellence. The successful candidate will collaborate extensively with commercial finance teams, clients, controllers, FP&A teams, and onshore counterparts to provide comprehensive commercial finance support across their allocated practice areas.

Working Hours

This role requires alignment with partial UK and US business hours, with standard working hours of 3:00 PM IST to 12:00 AM IST. Flexibility to adjust working hours based on business requirements and stakeholder needs is essential.

Job Description

Key responsibilities

• Reviews and provides advice on strategic financial plans in partnership with business leaders
• Partners to provide insight and challenge through financial analysis to enable business partners to make key decisions and achieve targets
• Supports client and vendor negotiations by providing analytical insight and ensuring optimal balance of pricing, early payment discounts, rebates and volume commitments (where applicable)
• Analyses consolidated budgets and forecasts, and provides interpretation, insight and guidanceIdentifies and drives operational improvement through analysis of financial plans, management information and performance
• Works with business leaders to understand short, medium and long-term resource requirements and impact on forecasts and budgets
• Supports analysis of client profitability and identifies and supports initiatives to improve profitability/margin
• Supports the Operational Finance Director, Financial Controller and / or Market FD, as necessary with high quality and insightful analysis as requested from time to time and works with them to deliver impact with the business
• Supports the implementation of best practice financial planning techniques in line with business needs and supports initiatives to improve the quality and consistency of business and finance data
• Create strong stakeholder relationships across with commercial and various other connected teams across the practices.
• Manage this entire commercial team working for multiple US practices ensuring delivery, accuracy and overall team management.
• Revenue & cost forecasting, variance analysis and tracking.
• Setting margin and profitability targets and analyzing performance, identifying and monitoring underlying drivers of cost and revenue variances between actual vs. forecast/budget, highlighting issues and margin impact where necessary
• Pricing and staff plan optimization, including time reporting and staffing reconciliations
• Contract review in partnership with Legal department and contract compliance management
• Work