Commercial Accounts Manager

The opportunity

We are seeking a confident, dedicated, and a highly skilled manager to join our esteemed and expanding commercial accounts team. The role entails providing support to the immediate team, the pricing team, the fee-earning community, and senior leadership, primarily within our UK office and across the firm as a vital member of the finance department.

The firm

Bird & Bird opens up a world of possible for lawyers and professionals everywhere. Here you can advise major enterprises and high-growth businesses on matters that are often transformative in nature, and alongside people who are truly collegiate in the way they work with everyone at Bird & Bird. We are one international firm, where over 70% of our work involves teams from across our firm. And that is only going to increase. It is this common purpose and shared approach that makes for a more productive, and collaborative place to work.

Our promise

Bird & Bird is committed to maintaining an inclusive working environment and we are an equal opportunities employer. We will actively support and supervise your professional development. For those with the necessary attitude, experience and skills, we will ensure that the firm is a first-class platform on which you can develop into an industry leader. We support an agile working environment and are happy to discuss flexible working.

We are a disability, neurodiversity and mental health inclusive employer and want to ensure that candidates have a barrier-free recruitment experience. If you need reasonable adjustments for any of your interviews or assessments, please email us at [email protected] for confidential advice. Alternatively, you can call on +44 20 3017 6867 to discuss this.

The team

Bird & Bird's Finance team's mission is to provide world class finance support to the business. In London the team comprises of over 70 finance professionals across a wide range of areas including management and financial accounting, transaction processing, partner accounting, tax, treasury, pricing and commercial decision support. Our 32 international offices have their own professionals providing local expertise and support. Collaborative across the network, the team are focussed on driving efficiency, adding value and profitable growth.

What you'll do

• Provide commercial, financial and analytical support to the practice groups, including financial analysis for the commercial accounts team and senior management to influence the right behaviours that enhance profitability.
• Pro-actively work with practice area heads and partners to assist with the financial understanding and management of their practice. Identifying, analysing, and driving opportunities to help maximise profitability and meet other goals and objectives.
• Supporting wider non-finance, commercial accounts and pricing teams by examining the financial performance of the practice groups through scheduled reporting analysis as well as ad-hoc requests, providing bespoke reporting where needed.
• Lead in supporting and advising Marketing & Business Development teams by reviewing requests for data, providing relevant reporting and analysis of results and
• applying to relevant strategy.
• Assist in wider projects and initiatives led by the commercial accountants and pricing teams aimed at gaining efficiencies and improving financial performance and profitability.
• Support the budgeting process through modelling of revenue trends and resource capacity
• Supporting business cases for any lateral recruitment by analysing and modelling the effect on the P&L of the practice of any candidate(s)
• Collaborate with the financial systems team to develop reporting capability in Power BI.
• Deliver monthly analysis and commentaries that focus on action points and improving performance.
• Identify the key levers impacting KPIs and providing supplementary analysis and input for business reviews where required.
• Assist in wider projects and initiatives led by the commercial accountants and pricing teams aimed at gaining efficiencies and improving financial performance and profitability.

About you

The successful candidate will possess the following qualities:

• Effective time management: Essential for handling competing deadlines in a fast-paced and sometimes demanding environment.
• Strong Excel proficiencies: Experience with advanced functions such as pivot tables, conditional formatting, and data validation is beneficial.
• Pride in delivery of excellence: High-quality service delivery while maintaining good internal and external relationships and managing stakeholder expectations effectively.
• Communication and interpersonal skills: Ability to liaise with colleagues across all levels and interpret financial information for stakeholders in both financial and non-financial roles.
• Teamwork: Collaborative work with the wider commercial accounts team across the finance department and business services, requiring good people skills.
• Accuracy and attention to detail: Focus on precision to become a reliable and trusted advisor.
• Proficient mathematical and analytical skills: Essential for understanding and interpreting financial data.
• Pricing experience: Some pricing experience in a business partnering context will be very advantageous.

Other desirable skills and experience

• Ideally the candidate will be qualified or studying towards a formal finance qualification and/or have experience of working within a law firm or professional services environment

The main responsibilities of this role are outlined above; however, this description is not exhaustive, and the job holder may be required to undertake additional duties from time to time to ensure the smooth running of the department. The role may require some working outside our normal working hours of 9:30am- 5:30pm.

Bird & Bird is committed to creating and sustaining a diverse and inclusive environment. We are delighted to confirm that we have achieved Mansfield UK Certification. This certification was achieved by considering at least 30% women, lawyers from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, lawyers with disabilities and LGBTQ+ lawyers for at least 70% of UK fee earner and leadership positions. We are committed to continuing to participate in Mansfield Rule UK and continue to work towards ensuring a diverse pool of candidates are considered for our roles, in line with the Mansfield Rule. You can read more about this here.