Senior Business Analyst - Business Planning & Analysis (BP&A)

About the role

Job Purpose The Senior Business Analyst - Africa BP&A plays a key role in driving integrated financial planning and performance management for Pernod Ricard Africa. Based in South Africa, the role supports the BP&A Director by translating strategy into financial plans and forecasts across multiple African markets. It provides a unified view of regional performance through analysis and consolidation, enabling data-driven decision-making in a complex environment. The position combines planning, forecasting, performance analysis, and business partnering to support profitable growth, ensure alignment with Group objectives, and deliver valuable insights to senior leadership. Key Duties and Responsibilities 1. Strategic Planning & Budgeting Integrated Planning: Support and coordinate the end-to-end strategic planning and annual budgeting process for PR Africa, in close partnership with the BP&A Director. This includes consolidating multi-year strategic plans, annual budgets, and Risks & Opportunities (R&O) for all African markets, ensuring alignment with Africa & Middle East (AME) regional priorities and Group guidance. Robust Assumptions & Scenario Planning: Ensure that long-range plans and annual budgets are built on robust, well-documented assumptions (e.g. volume, price/mix, A&P, OPEX, CAPEX, FX, working capital). Conduct scenario analyses and sensitivity modelling to test key assumptions and support strategic decision-making, providing management with contingency views for volatile market conditions (e.g., FX swings, inflation, demand shocks). Stakeholder Alignment: Work with commercial leads and other key stakeholders and business leaders to translate strategic goals into clear financial plans for each market, challenging and validating submissions to drive ambition while ensuring plans remain realistic and aligned to Group/AME guidelines. Facilitate review sessions and secure sign-offs for budgets and strategic plans at Africa CFO/ExCo level. 2. Rolling Forecasting & Performance Management Rolling Forecast (RF) Orchestration: Lead the preparation, consolidation, and analysis of rolling forecasts (e.g., 18+ month outlooks) across all African markets on a periodic (monthly/quarterly) basis. Ensure a disciplined RF cycle is followed region-wide, coordinating input from local finance teams and updating outlooks continuously to reflect current trends and new developments. Performance Analysis & Reporting: Analyse financial performance vs. plan, prior year, and latest forecasts for the region, identifying variance drivers, trends, risks and opportunities. Prepare high-quality P&L analyses and executive commentary (e.g., P&L Slicer, Flash reports) for the Africa CFO, regional CODI/ExCo, and Group FP&A, clearly explaining business performance, root causes of variances, and forecast changes. Restitution & Corrective Actions: Highlight under-performance or gaps (versus targets) and proactively recommend corrective measures. Work with affiliate finance teams to track mitigation plans and restitution actions addressing risks or shortfalls, and follow up to ensure timely execution and accountability for performance improvement. Executive Support: Provide timely financial updates and business forecasts to the Africa CFO and leadership, enabling agile responses to new information. Step in to represent the BP&A function in performance reviews when needed, ensuring continuity of insights and advice. 3. Regional Financial Consolidation & Reporting Africa Financial Consolidation: Oversee the consolidation of financial results, forecasts, and plans across all African markets (and support Middle East where required) to deliver a single source of truth and unified regional view. Validate and reconcile submissions from various country units, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and compliance with Group reporting standards and timelines. Management Reporting & Commentary: Ensure the timely and accurate delivery of monthly and quarterly management reports for Africa, including P&Ls, KPIs, dashboards, and ad-hoc analyses for regional reviews. Own the preparation and submission of Africas financial reports into Group consolidation systems (e.g., Polaris, HFM, Essbase) within deadlines. Investment Analysis & Governance: Support the BP&A Director and Africa CFO in evaluating major investments, business cases, and resource allocation decisions, ensuring consistency with strategic plans and robust ROI analysis. Track post-investment performance to inform future decision-making and capital allocation across markets. 4. Business Partnering & Decision Support Cross-Functional Partnership: Act as senior finance business partner to Africas leadership teams in Commercial (Sales & Trade Marketing), Brand Marketing, Supply Chain/Operations, and country management. Collaborate closely with these functions to integrate financial insights into commercial strategies, operations planning, and strategic initiatives. Decision-Enabling Analysis: Provid