Sovereign Housing Hiring for Finance Director – Investment and Development Job at Basingstoke, England Full Time

Sovereign is a leading Housing Association, driven by our social purpose and we’re going through an exciting period of change, opening up opportunities to maximise the social impact of everything we do.

We have a fantastic opportunity to join Sovereign as our Finance Director – Investment and Development to lead our Investment Finance team. Based from either our head office in Basingstoke or our offices in Bristol, you’ll combine time in the office with home working and some travel across our region or to London for meetings on occasion.

The Role

This is a key role within the Finance Senior Leadership Group. You’ll partner with the Chief Investment and Development Officer and the wider team to provide deep commercial expertise and strong financial control and insight, aiming to maximise the effectiveness of Sovereign’s growth and investment activities. This could be new development and sales, lettings, regeneration, joint ventures, land purchases, stock acquisition and divestment as well as investing in decarbonisation of our existing estates.

You’ll provide effective leadership to the Investment and Commercial finance management team, overseeing a specialist finance team to provide a range of services which support investment and development activities, including budgeting and forecasting, performance reporting, financial appraisal and modelling, structuring, risk management and commercial advice.

Key responsibilities include:

• Overseeing all financial and commercial advice, support and modelling for all investment and development projects. Supporting the Chief Investment and Development Officer in optimising and de-risking new investment proposals, ensuring they are fully evaluated and risk assessed
• Providing concise insight briefings to Development Directors, the Group Board and its subcommittees, focusing on deal structure, tax implications, key risks and mitigations, and return measures such as residual land value, profit margins, peak debt, ROCE, IRR and NPV
• Overseeing bids for new funding, e.g., grants from Homes England, and ensuring that the assumptions and controls for the bid process is sound
• Overseeing all financial reporting and insight for Sovereign’s investment and development activities to the Executive, the Board and its subcommittees, including cash flows, the balance sheet, the income statement, non-financial drivers and KPIs

What we’re looking for

You should be able to demonstrate strong experience in similar senior leadership role, with evidence of strategic decision making and working collaboratively with others to achieve business objectives.

Ideally, you’ll also have a track record of providing financial and commercial expertise successfully across a variety of Investment and Development areas, including joint ventures, urban regeneration and strategic asset management projects in a real estate context. You’ll also need:

• Strong practical experience in financial accounting and modelling, ideally being fully qualified (ACA, ACCA, CIMA)
• A deep understanding of activities within property and real estate
• A track record of leading successful teams and providing support for continued professional development
• Clear communication skills, with the ability to influence as well as offer and receive challenge in a constructive and open manner
• Strong IT skills including advanced Excel financial modelling expertise and ideally have experience using real estate appraisal software such as Proval, Pamwin, Sequel, Landval or Argus
• A strong analytical mind with a high attention to detail to ensure your data, insight and recommendations are accurate and reliable

Our benefits

• £450 flex-pot annually, discounted shopping & cycling scheme
• 25 Days Holiday + Bank Holidays (with an extra day every year up to 30 days)
• Company pension scheme matched up to 12%, life cover at 4x your salary
• Flexible working – we’re committed to giving people flexibility as widely as possible
• Options for private medical insurance, dental insurance & critical illness cover

It’s an exciting time to be joining Sovereign and this role gives a real opportunity to play a central part in delivering our ambitious Development strategy and wider Corporate plan.