Finance Business Partner – Commercial

Position Title: Finance Business Partner - Commercial 
Department: Commercial / Sales / Marketing
Reports To:
Finance Manager
Location: Johannesburg

1. Role Purpose

The Finance Business Partner (FBP) – Commercial serves as the strategic financial advisor to the Sales, Marketing, Revenue Management, and Commercial Operations teams. The role is responsible for driving commercial profitability, strengthening revenue management discipline, and enabling data-driven decision-making across the customer, channel, brand, and route-to-market landscape. This role translates commercial activity into meaningful financial insights, identifies growth and margin opportunities, and ensures strong governance across pricing, trade spend, and revenue performance.

2. Key Responsibilities

Financial Planning & Analysis

Lead financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting for Sales, Marketing, Trade Spend, and Commercial cost centres.

Develop and maintain revenue and margin models, pricing scenarios, and promotional ROI analysis.

Track performance versus budget and provide actionable variance analysis with clear commercial drivers (volume, mix, pricing, discounts, NSV).

Business Partnering & Decision Support

Serve as the primary financial advisor to Commercial, Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Growth Management leadership teams.

Provide insights on pricing strategy, discount optimisation, promotional performance, channel profitability, and customer contribution.

Support development and assessment of business cases for trade investments, brand activations, customer incentives, and route-to-market strategies.

Identify margin expansion opportunities, inefficient spend, and commercial operating model enhancements.

Commercial Finance & Governance

Ensure strong financial governance across pricing, rebates, trade spend, and discount structures.

Validate customer agreements, promotional proposals, commercial contracts, and incentive frameworks.

Strengthen internal controls related to trade accruals, credit notes, pricing exceptions, and customer claims.

Ensure adherence to commercial policies and financial governance frameworks.

Performance Reporting

Develop and deliver high-impact commercial performance dashboards and management reporting.

Provide insights on KPIs including:

Revenue, NSV, and Margin by customer, channel, and brand

Trade spend ROI and promotional effectiveness

Pricing execution and mix performance

Customer/Channel profitability

Brand contribution and commercial OPEX

Present findings to executive committees, sales reviews, demand forums, and commercial leadership.

Strategic Projects & Growth Initiatives

Support strategic commercial initiatives including pricing architecture redesign, portfolio optimisation, customer segmentation, and brand growth strategies.

Lead the finance workstream in cross-functional commercial projects (new product launches, route-to-market changes, commercial systems).

Partner with BI, IT, and RGM teams to improve data integrity, automate dashboards, and enhance predictive analytics.

3. Qualifications & Experience

Minimum Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in finance, Accounting, Economics, or related field.

Professional certification (CIMA, CA(SA), ACCA) required; CA(SA) advantageous.

Minimum of 5 years’ experience in Finance, with at least 2–3 years in Commercial Finance, Sales Finance, FMCG, Beverage, Manufacturing, or Retail environments.

Strong understanding of revenue drivers, pricing structures, trade spend, and customer/channel economics.

Proven success in financial modelling, forecasting, and commercial performance analysis.

Technical Skills

Advanced Excel and commercial financial modelling capabilities.

Experience with ERP systems (SAP, Oracle, Syspro, MS Dynamics or similar).

Solid understanding of pricing structures, margin analytics, trade spend accounting, and commercial P&L management.

Experience with BI tools (Power BI, Tableau, Qlik) highly advantageous.

4. Key Competencies

Strategic Thinking: Able to link commercial outcomes to financial performance.

Commercial Acumen: Strong understanding of sales, marketing and route-to-market economics.

Stakeholder Influence: Able to challenge constructively and guide decision-making.

Analytical Mindset: Strong data analysis and problem-solving capability.

Collaboration & Partnership: Works effectively across commercial and cross-functional teams.

Accuracy & Governance: Ensures strong pricing, discount, and trade governance.

Results Orientation: Drives financial insights that translate into measurable business performance.

5. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Accuracy and quality of commercial forecasts and budgets.

Revenue, NSV, and Margin improvement across customers, channels, and brands.

Trade spend effectiveness and ROI delivery.

Pricing compliance and governance strength.

Customer and channel profitability improvements.

Quality and timeliness of financial reporting and insights.

Stakeholder satisfaction and commercial engagement effectiveness.

6. Working Conditions

Office-based with regular interaction at customer engagements, commercial reviews, and cross-functional meetings.

Occasional travel may be required depending on customer base and commercial footprint.

NB: Specific duties/responsibilities will vary from time to time: the above list is intended to indicate the general nature of the post and is not exhaustive. The post holder will be expected to be flexible in supporting the business by undertaking any other responsibilities which are aligned with this job level.