Senior Principal, Finance Strategy

Job Title – Senior Principal, Finance Strategy

Description – Lead enterprise-wide finance transformation at Pearson, shaping strategy, operating model, and digital evolution to enable a more agile, insight-led, and AI-enabled finance function.

About the role

This is a high-impact, enterprise-critical role at the centre of Pearson’s finance transformation agenda. As Senior Principal, Finance Strategy, you will partner closely with the Group Finance Officer to define and deliver the finance strategy and operating model, ensuring finance evolves into a more agile, insight-led, and digitally enabled function.

Combining strategic leadership with hands-on program delivery, you will drive step-change improvements in how finance supports business performance, allocates capital, and enables decision-making across the organisation. This includes accelerating the adoption of automation, AI, and modern finance systems, while embedding a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and value creation.

Operating at the top of the finance agenda, you will act as both a trusted advisor and an execution lead—mobilising senior stakeholders, aligning priorities across functions, and ensuring transformation initiatives deliver measurable business impact.

What you’ll do

• Partner with the Group Finance Officer to define, refine, and operationalise the finance strategy in alignment with broader corporate and business unit priorities
• Translate strategic vision into a clear, executable finance operating model, including defined accountabilities across global, business unit, and functional finance teams
• Drive alignment between financial planning, performance management, and value creation priorities across the organisation
• Clarify the role of finance as both an owner and enabler of performance, embedding best-in-class principles for accountability and decision support
• Lead a portfolio of enterprise finance transformation initiatives spanning global processes, systems, data governance, and business assurance
• Establish and run a structured program governance model, with clear milestones, delivery plans, and value realisation tracking
• Identify and remove barriers to execution, ensuring transformation initiatives deliver at pace and with measurable impact
• Act as the integrator across initiatives, ensuring a connected, end-to-end transformation rather than fragmented delivery
• Drive the adoption of automation, advanced analytics, and AI across finance to improve efficiency, forecasting, and decision support
• Partner with Technology and Data teams to prioritise finance system investments aligned to strategic outcomes
• Champion the shift toward real-time, data-driven finance capabilities, reducing manual processes and enhancing predictive insight
• Ensure digital initiatives are embedded into day-to-day ways of working, not just deployed as standalone tools
• Act as a key interface between finance leadership, business unit leaders, and central functions to align priorities and drive trade-offs
• Influence executive-level stakeholders to prioritise transformation initiatives and commit the necessary resources
• Provide strategic insight and challenge, positioning finance as a proactive partner in enterprise performance
• Build strong cross-functional relationships to enable faster, more effective decision-making
• Lead the overall change narrative for finance transformation, translating strategy into a clear, compelling story for the organisation
• Design and deliver structured change management approaches to ensure adoption of new processes, tools, and behaviours
• Engage and mobilise the finance community, building momentum and commitment to transformation goals
• Ensure communication is consistent, outcome-focused, and reinforces accountability and progress
• Build and develop capability across the finance organisation in program delivery, digital finance, and strategic partnering
• Foster a culture of innovation, ownership, and continuous improvement across teams

What we’re looking for

• Proven experience in transformation, strategy, or operating model design within a large, complex organisation
• Demonstrated track record of delivering enterprise-wide transformation programmes with measurable business impact
• Strong strategic leadership capability, with the ability to link finance strategy to enterprise value creation
• Experience leading complex, multi-year programmes across systems, processes, and organisational structures
• Deep understanding of financial performance, profitability drivers, and capital allocation principles
• Expertise in operating model design, including governance, processes, and accountability frameworks
• Exceptional ability to influence and align executive stakeholders across functions
• Strong change leadership capability, with experience driving behavioural as well as structural change
• Experience working with enterprise systems, data transformation, and digital finance capabilities
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to translate complex strategy into clear, actionable narratives

Location & working pattern

This role operates at a global, enterprise level, with collaboration required across international teams.

Flexible working arrangements are available depending on location and business needs.

Compensation: