Regional Finance Business Partner, East Africa

ABOUT THE COMPANY LIONPRO is a second-generation, family-owned trading company with over 30 years of experience connecting high-quality animal feed, pet food, and aquaculture ingredients with customers around the world. Operating across 4 continents and 50+ countries, LIONPRO combines deep industry expertise with a strong international logistics network, local stock infrastructure, and end-to-end support across sourcing, import/export, customs clearance, documentation, and delivery. Quality and reliability sit at the heart of the business. LIONPRO maintains rigorous feed safety and traceability standards, working with leading European producers and complying with internationally recognised standards including GMP+, HACCP, ISO, and European Hygiene Regulations. Beyond trading, LIONPRO is committed to sharing knowledge and supporting more sustainable agriculture. The company provides customers with practical guidance on animal nutrition, organises farmer education initiatives, and collaborates with European universities and veterinary experts to promote evidence-based practices. With a growing presence across Africa and a strong focus on long-term partnerships, LIONPRO is continuing to expand its operations while contributing to a more sustainable food system — including through initiatives that reduce food waste, deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon footprint. In 2025, LIONPRO generated approximately USD 70 million in turnover and continues to build its international business from its roots in Europe.   ABOUT THE ROLE LIONPRO is seeking a Regional Finance Business Partner to act as the East Africa Regional Director’s right hand for all finance matters across Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. The role combines forward-looking commercial insight, reliable financial information and the right Group Finance expertise so the Regional Director receives clear, timely answers and recommendations. It supports profitable, sustainable growth through planning, forecasting, pricing and margin analysis, investment evaluation and cash-flow visibility, with a particular focus on the East Africa hub in Kenya and the planned retail network. It coordinates regional finance questions with Market Controllers, Country Accountants and Group Finance specialists so every matter raised by the Regional Director is owned and resolved, without replacing the control, accounting, treasury or local execution roles in the Group Finance operating model. WHAT YOU WILL DO - Business partnering and performance: Partner with the Regional Director and leadership team on financial and commercial decisions; provide insight and challenge on revenue, gross margin, operating costs, EBITDA, working capital and cash flow, and translate the numbers into clear business actions. - Budgeting, forecasting and planning: Lead the regional budget and forecast within the Group Finance framework; align assumptions across the four markets, challenge inputs, build scenarios and maintain a current outlook that surfaces deviations early. - Pricing, margin and commercial analytics: Analyse pricing and profitability by customer, product, channel and market, including landed cost, FX sensitivity and margin leakage. Final commercial decisions remain with the business owner within Group policy. - Kenya hub and retail expansion: Build the financial framework for the hub and retail strategy: unit economics, capex and operating-cost models, break-even and payback, inventory and working-capital needs, expansion and downside scenarios, funding requirements and post-investment reviews. - Business cases and investment decisions: Prepare and challenge business cases for new ventures, channels, locations, partnerships and products; assess returns, risks, sensitivities and capital needs and give clear recommendations and alternatives. - Working capital, cash flow and financing: Forecast regional working capital and cash flow, explain the commercial drivers and flag future funding needs to the Regional Director and Group Treasury. Treasury retains ownership of financing strategy, facilities, FX, covenants and banking policy. - Management reporting and decision support: Turn Group and market actuals into concise regional insight and lead performance discussions on deviations, drivers, risks and required actions, using actuals produced by the control structure rather than recreating reports. - Finance coordination: Act as the MD's senior Finance interface: bring together Market Control, Country Accountants, Group Accounting, Treasury, Business Control, Data & BI and process owners, track open issues and return one coherent answer, without changing formal process ownership or approval authorities. - Finance transformation and SAP: Represent East Africa business requirements in SAP, reporting, BI, and planning initiatives and support adoption of standard Group processes and tools. Please Note: - This role does not own or perform bookkeeping or transaction processing, AP/AR, bank and balance-sheet reconciliations, month-end close, statutory accounting, tax filing or audit execution, transfer-pricing documentation, IFRS or consolidation decisions, payments, bank-account administration, Treasury governance, master-data governance or accounting policy. - These sit with Country Accounting, Market Control, Group Accounting and Treasury. - This role coordinates the response to the Regional Director, explains business implications, and escalates delays or decisions that need attention. WHAT YOU HAVE - Strong commercial-finance and business-partnering experience, ideally multi-country, with proven capability in financial modelling, budgeting, forecasting, pricing and investment analysis. - Ability to move comfortably between strategy and numbers, challenges senior stakeholders constructively, explains complex issues simply and works effectively in a matrix organization. - Broad finance judgement to frame accounting, tax, treasury and control questions for the right specialists and explain the implications to regional management. - Advanced Excel/modelling skills. - Experience with ERP, SAP, BI and financial-planning tools desirable. KEY SUCCESS MEASURES Measured on decision quality and forward-looking financial management, not accounting-process execution. - Budget and forecasts on time with clear, documented assumptions - Risks and opportunities identified early enough for action - Reliable revenue, margin, EBITDA, working-capital and cash outlook - Pricing and margin decisions supported by robust financial analysis - Hub and retail investments backed by business cases, sensitivities and post-investment tracking - Regional financing needs identified in advance for Treasury action - Finance questions resolved with clear ownership and one coherent response to the Regional Director - Group expertise used without duplicating accounting, control or treasury