McLaren Automotive Ltd
Finance Director - Product Development
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What to Expect
As the Finance Director of Product Development, you are the senior finance partner to the Product Development leadership team. The team leads the Product Development finance organisation, with responsibilities for product-related business planning and control, cost engineering, billing of material and product-related capital expenditure. The role provides integrated financial and commercial leadership across the end-to-end vehicle portfolio, from product concept and business-case approval through vehicle concept, engineering development, industrialisation and launch phases.
You will own the financial planning, product-cost intelligence and performance framework required to safeguard value, govern programme investment and support timely decisions. Through leadership of a multidisciplinary team, it enables informed decisions that protect the distinctive performance, technology, craftsmanship and quality expected of a luxury, high-performance automotive brand while delivering sustainable returns.
What You'll Do
- Lead the financial evaluation and governance of the product portfolio including the programme financials, ensuring vehicle, derivative, platform, powertrain and technology business cases are robust, comparable and aligned with corporate strategy, brand positioning and shareholder value.
- Own financial oversight of engineering and programme investment, including capital and revenue expenditure, tooling, prototype, validation and supplier-development costs; maintain clear baselines, forecasts, contingencies and delegated approvals.
- Improve finance processes, models and digital reporting so that programme decisions are based on timely, consistent and traceable data with clear ownership and a single source of truth.
- Provide independent financial assurance at programme gateways and design reviews; quantify the cost, margin, cash and return implications of scope, specification, timing and technical trade-offs before commitment.
- Maintain disciplined financial risk and opportunity management across the portfolio, including supplier exposure, foreign exchange, commodity movements, obsolescence, late engineering change, launch delay and warranty risk.
- Partner with Product Strategy, Engineering, Design, Programme Management, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Quality, Commercial and Supply Chain to resolve competing requirements and secure an executable, value-led product plan.
- Ensure strong financial controls, accounting treatment, audit evidence and governance for programme expenditure, capitalisation, supplier commitments and product-cost reporting.
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What You'll Bring
- Qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent) with substantial post-qualification experience in senior finance leadership.
- Significant experience in automotive product development, advanced engineering, technology or another complex, capital-intensive manufacturing environment; luxury or high-performance automotive experience is strongly preferred.
- Strong understanding of the vehicle-development lifecycle, programme gateways, engineering change, tooling, prototypes, validation, supplier nomination, industrialisation and start-of-production readiness.
- Demonstrable leadership of multi-year product business cases, investment governance, target costing, bill-of-materials management, lifecycle profitability and return-on-investment analysis.
- Advanced financial modelling, scenario analysis, forecasting and management-reporting capability, with the ability to connect technical assumptions to cost, cash, margin and enterprise value.
- Commercial understanding of low-volume, high-complexity vehicle economics, including option-rich product mixes, constrained volumes, specialist suppliers, long lead-time tooling and global market requirements.
- Proven ability to influence executive leaders, present clear recommendations to senior governance forums and challenge optimism or unsupported assumptions with evidence and sound judgement.
- Strong knowledge of financial controls, capitalisation principles, audit requirements and risk management in a programme-led environment.
- Proven experience leading sizeable, multidisciplinary teams across Cost Engineering, Business Planning and FP&A, with responsibility for performance, capability, succession and the quality of business partnering.
- Deep understanding of automotive cost engineering, including target cost setting, should-cost analysis, value engineering, bill-of-materials cost development and delivery of cost-down roadmaps with Engineering and Purchasing.
- Extensive FP&A and business-planning experience, including annual budgets, rolling forecasts, long-range planning, resource and headcount planning, scenario modelling and executive performance reporting.
- High proficiency in ERP, planning and business-intelligence tools; experience improving programme-finance data, systems and reporting is desirable
- Commercially courageous: Willing to challenge constructively, stop unsupported commitments and maintain financial discipline under delivery pressure.
- Strategic and analytical: Sees the portfolio-wide implications of individual programme decisions and converts complexity into clear choices.
- Credible and influential: Builds trust with finance and non-finance leaders and communicates with authority at executive and Board level.
- Pragmatic and decisive: Balances pace, precision and proportionality, enabling timely decisions without compromising governance.
- Collaborative: Creates alignment across Product Development, Commercial, Manufacturing and Finance while retaining independent judgement.
- Detail-conscious: Demands reliable assumptions, traceable data and disciplined follow-through, particularly where product complexity creates financial risk.
- Resilient and adaptable: Remains effective through programme uncertainty, shifting priorities and high-stakes delivery periods.
- People-focused leader: Sets high standards, develops capability and creates an accountable, inclusive and improvement-led team culture.
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What We'll Do for You
We offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:
- Structured career development framework
- 25 days’ holiday, plus bank holiday. Annual buy & sell up to five days
- Enhanced company pension scheme
- Discretionary annual bonus award
- Private medical insurance and health cash plan
- Life assurance benefit
- Ability to apply for a sabbatical of up to one year after only two years’ service
- Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
- Generous parental leave policies
- A range of wellbeing initiatives, such as employee assistance programme and free financial & mortgage advice
Who Are We?
No restraints. No limitations. We don’t simply push boundaries. We completely rethink them. McLaren Automotive exists to create breath-taking performance road cars.
It takes a community to do what we do. A diverse group of people with many areas of expertise, united by their passion to deliver visionary products and set new benchmarks.
McLaren Automotive commits to equal opportunity for all. Diversity, Equality and Inclusion is at the heart of our impact, it drives our innovation and enables us to truly create something special. Join us on our journey.
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