The Crown Estate
Senior Accounts Payable Manager
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Advert Closes: Monday 17th August
Are you a transformational Accounts Payable leader ready to drive operational excellence and shape the future of finance at The Crown Estate?
Purpose of Role
At The Crown Estate, our purpose is to create lasting and shared prosperity for the nation. As Senior Accounts Payable Manager, you will play a pivotal role in delivering a high-performing, modern Accounts Payable function that supports this ambition through exceptional financial stewardship, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.
Reporting to the Director of Finance Operations, you will lead the end-to-end Accounts Payable function, ensuring transactions are processed accurately, compliantly, and efficiently within a complex, high-volume environment. You will drive service excellence for suppliers and stakeholders, strengthen controls and governance, and help shape the future of Accounts Payable through transformation and innovation.
The Role and Impact
This is an exciting opportunity to lead a critical finance function within a purpose-led organisation and play a key role in the ongoing evolution of Finance Operations.
Key responsibilities include:
- Leading the development and delivery of a modern, enterprise-wide Accounts Payable operating model, driving automation, standardisation, and process optimisation.
- Managing and developing a high-performing Accounts Payable team, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
- Overseeing the end-to-end Accounts Payable process, ensuring invoices and credit notes are processed accurately, compliantly, and within agreed service levels.
- Owning and maintaining the organisation's expense policy, ensuring strong governance and consistent application across the business.
- Leading month-end, quarter-end, and year-end Accounts Payable activities, delivering accurate reporting, KPI and SLA management, and meaningful performance insights.
- Managing audit requirements, Freedom of Information requests, and compliance activities, ensuring robust controls and risk management.
- Acting as the primary point of contact for Accounts Payable escalations, building strong relationships across Finance, Procurement, business leaders, and external suppliers.
- Partnering with the Director of Finance Operations to develop and deliver the Accounts Payable strategy and support wider Finance Operations initiatives.
- Working closely with Procurement to enhance supplier relationships, strengthen commercial outcomes, and improve working capital performance.
- Supporting finance transformation programmes that align the Accounts Payable function to broader organisational objectives.
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What You'll Bring
We're looking for a strategic and people-focused Accounts Payable leader with strong technical expertise and a passion for driving operational excellence.
- Experience leading and developing high-performing Accounts Payable teams within a fast-paced, high-volume environment.
- Proven success delivering process improvement, transformation initiatives, and organisational change.
- Great knowledge of Accounts Payable operations, financial controls, audit requirements, and compliance frameworks.
- Experience managing KPIs, SLAs, and performance reporting to drive continuous improvement and service excellence.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate at all levels.
- Experience working with ERP systems, including supporting system enhancements, upgrades, or implementations.
- Advanced Excel skills, including financial modelling, data analysis, and process automation using VBA/macros.
- Experience using Power BI or similar reporting tools to generate meaningful management information and support data-driven decision-making.
- The ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on leadership in a complex and evolving environment.
Key capabilities:
- Strategic and enterprise-wide mindset
- Inclusive and collaborative leadership
- Data-led decision-making
- Commercial judgement and risk awareness
- Technical and analytical capability
- A continuous improvement and transformation mindset
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If you're looking to lead a critical finance function, drive meaningful transformation, and contribute to an organisation that creates lasting value for both people and places, we'd love to hear from you.
Our Offering / benefits:
As well as a competitive salary, pension, and performance-related bonus offering, we have a wealth of benefits available ranging from flexible working; market-leading family policies and shopping discounts in the West End, to private healthcare; life and critical illness cover, and 28 days holiday with the option to buy more. We value work-life balance and your wellbeing highly, enabling you to be your best self at work.
Disability Disclaimer:
We are a proud disability-confident employer and operate the offer of interview scheme Disability Confident employer scheme - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
We are happy to offer alternative application methods or formats and can be flexible on our process to enable you to have the best opportunity.
If you have any questions about our recruitment process or would like to talk about adjustments, please contact us directly, or at careers@thecrownestate.co.uk
Please note that if we receive a high volume of applications, we may close this advert early. We encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
The Crown Estate is a unique business with a distinct heritage and a portfolio unlike any other.
It includes some of central London’s best places to work, shop, and spend time, retail and leisure destinations across the country, and a substantial rural portfolio. As manager of the seabed and half the foreshore around England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, we play a role in the UK’s world-leading offshore wind sector as well as marine aggregates, cables, and pipelines. We are also responsible for the Windsor Estate, including the world-renowned Windsor Great Park.
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