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Helsing is a defense AI company on a mission to protect democracies through technological leadership. As Senior Commercial Finance Business Partner, you will serve as the strategic financial co-pilot to R&D Directors, Manufacturing Heads, and Procurement leaders—driving investment decisions rather than simply reporting on them.
You will build, review, and challenge multi-million-euro business cases, track program-level IRR and NPV, and ensure aggressive R&D and manufacturing investments deliver robust long-term profitability. This role demands deep commercial acumen, world-class financial modeling, and strong understanding of industrial unit economics across R&D labs, factory floors, and tier-1 supplier networks.
Key responsibilities include:
**Capital Investment & Business Case Development:** Lead financial appraisal of new initiatives, building and stress-testing complex business cases for major R&D programs, software features, and hardware platforms. Model and continuously track investment metrics (IRR, NPV, Payback Period, ROIC) to guide capital allocation. Evaluate capex proposals for manufacturing scale-up, including automated production lines and specialized tooling.
**Product Unit Economics & Supply Chain Finance:** Partner with engineering teams to embed financial discipline from product inception, tracking Bill of Materials cost evolution from prototyping through full-rate production. Collaborate with Procurement and Supply Chain to map supplier networks, analyze cost drivers, support negotiations with cost-insight data, and run lean cost-improvement workshops. Manage inventory levels, mitigate obsolescence risk, and optimize working capital for long-lead-time components.
**Defense Program Performance & Pricing:** Support Commercial and Business Development on major defense bids, building pricing and margin models reflecting defense contract structures (fixed-price incentive, cost-plus, milestone billing). Own financial tracking of major programs, monitor performance against baselines, identify margin leakage and cost overruns, and co-develop corrective actions. Develop and present commercial KPI dashboards (Gross Margin, Contribution Margin, Cost-to-Serve, Cost-Variance-at-Completion) to program leadership and senior finance executives.
You bring a recognized professional finance qualification (CIMA, ACCA, ACA, or equivalent), highly advanced Excel and financial modeling capabilities (DCF, IRR, NPV, scenario analysis), and proven track record in commercial finance or business partnering within high-tech manufacturing, aerospace, defense, deep tech, automotive, or capital-intensive engineering.
