Junior Finance Advisor

Are you an aspiring Business Finance Advisor with an interest in financial analysis and accounting? Here’s a chance to join the SDSA Finance team in a role where you’ll have every opportunity to grow your professional experience and make your mark. You’ll grow within a supportive, global company powering the lives of millions of people daily.

Where you fit in?

This exciting role reports to the South Africa Business Finance Manager and is a junior role in the Finance pool responsible for contributing to and delivering Finance support across the Downstream business in South Africa.

The Shell World Class Finance ethos of allocating resources based on value and risk will allow the successful candidate to leverage & showcase their strengths while giving them the opportunity to sharpen their development areas by working with other experts in both local and regional projects. The role will have exposure to the Downstream business and involves attending and contributing to team meetings, developing a deep understanding of the business, and using Management Information (MI) to provide business insights to support decision making. There will also be opportunities for the successful candidate to drive an end-to-end mindset in all decisions by providing relevant financial information and business insight to multiple stakeholders.

What’s the role?

As a Business Finance Advisor, your role includes reviewing the appropriate business control framework, management information, business analysis, and decision support, as well as involvement in a wide range of projects that can only be found in a large multinational company (e.g. trading, FMCG, retail, and logistics). The role will form a key part of the Finance skill pool and will expose the successful candidate to a wide range of challenges and learning across the Downstream business to develop a well-rounded finance professional.

Furthermore, your more specific duties include:

• Understanding financial performance and ensuring errors in reporting are rectified by the responsible parties.
• Being a strong business partner, finding the right balance to support the business goals while providing challenge from a profitability, risk, and compliance perspective.
• Promoting a mindset of integrated value and trade-off in the business to deliver maximum value to the enterprise.
• Challenging for continuous improvement on cost management through a flawless performance and appraisal process and regional challenge.
• Providing Finance input and support for projects to ensure value growth in line with business strategy and goals.
• Ad-hoc support of trading deals, local investment proposals, and driving focus on operational excellence.
• Providing clear and consistent business analysis that allows for timely decision making for the business in South Africa.
• Participating in the planning process as required with special focus on the operationalization of the agreed plan at the local level.

What we need from you?

We’d hope to see as many of the following as possible on your CV:

• At least 3 years of experience in the Oil & Gas or FMCG industry or the like.
• Bachelor’s Degree, preferably BCom/BBusSci Finance or Engineering degree with some experience in Accounting.
• Financial modelling is a must.
• Awareness of Management Information and reporting for business & margin analysis.
• Proficiency in SAP, MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint.
• Knowledge of planning, target setting, and budgeting.
• Knowledge in performance management, appraisal, stock, and credit management.
• Team player with excellent interpersonal skills.
• Ability to gain the confidence of various internal and external parties building on strong knowledge and understanding of the business drivers, value, and risk.
• Problem-solving mindset with the courage to ensure professional financial rigor is applied to the commercial decision-making process and risk management bringing analytics and insights to the table.
• Flexibility to provide support across multiple activities/assets.
• Ability to rapidly understand the specific business or function context for which activities in the pool concept are linked to.

Company description

Shell is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies with about 84,000 employees across more than 70 countries. We aim to meet the world’s growing need for more and cleaner energy solutions in ways that are economically, environmentally, and socially responsible. We have expertise in exploration, production, refining, and marketing of oil and natural gas, and the manufacturing and marketing of chemicals.

As a global energy company operating in a challenging world, we set high standards of performance and ethical behaviors. We are judged by how we act and how we live up to our core values of honesty, integrity, and respect for people. Our Business Principles are based on these. They promote trust, openness, teamwork, and professionalism, as well as pride in what we do and how we conduct business.

Building on our core values, we aspire to sustain a diverse and inclusive culture where everyone feels respected and valued, from our employees to our customers and partners. A diverse workforce and an inclusive work environment are vital to our success, leading to greater innovation and better energy solutions.