Centrica plc is a leading British energy supply and services company undergoing a fundamental reshaping of its business — moving away from volatile earnings towards stable, infrastructure-led cash flows and predictable growth. This briefing sets out everything a serious candidate needs to understand the mandate, the environment, and the opportunity.
The Opportunity in Brief
Centrica is entering the next critical phase of a multi-year finance transformation programme. Group Finance is seeking an experienced, pragmatic, and visionary Finance Transformation Director to define the future-state vision, build a sequenced roadmap, and drive execution across a complex, highly regulated environment.
This role reports directly to the Group Finance Director and is based in Windsor (hybrid), transitioning to Reading and/or Paddington in November. For the right individual, this is a high-profile opportunity to own a significant corporate agenda and deliver a lasting legacy of change.
Watch: Centrica Overview
Engagement Models
Fixed Term Contract
£175,000 to £200,000
12-months
Day Rate
Inside IR35 (via Adecco)
Rate open for discussion
Business Structure & Financial Snapshot
Centrica recently streamlined into three reportable segments to simplify operations and drive faster decision-making. Their H1 2026 interim results reflect a business absorbing significant transformation investment in the short term to secure long-term structural stability.
Retail
Home: Residential energy supply and services across the UK and Ireland.
Business: Commercial energy supply and services for corporate clients.
Optimisation
Energy procurement and trading within global markets — a high-complexity, specialist function requiring sophisticated risk management.
Infrastructure
Long-term physical energy assets, including nuclear investments (Sizewell C), the Grain LNG terminal, and domestic gas storage facilities.
H1 2026 Revenue
Adjusted EBITDA
Capital Investment
Accelerated sharply into power generation and transformation
2030 EBITDA Target
The anchor of the strategic growth ambition
The Transformation Mandate: From Offshoring to Reinvention
Group Finance has already achieved an approximate 10% reduction in its cost run-rate for 2026. However, this was delivered largely through structural headcount reduction — reshuffling teams, removing roles, and capturing immediate synergies — rather than through genuine process re-engineering. Across the 300-strong Group Finance cohort, this has created change fatigue: a perception that teams are simply being asked to do more with less, without the systems improvements needed to make the workload sustainable.
The next phase must change this perception. Historically, the transformation agenda focused heavily on large-scale offshoring — relocating existing manual processes to strategic partners such as Accenture to deliver them more cheaply. Centrica is now moving decisively towards the fundamental reinvention of end-to-end finance processes. The strategic question is no longer how to perform legacy tasks more cheaply offshore. The incoming Director must challenge whether certain tasks should be performed at all, then identify the most modern, digitally enabled ways to deliver those that remain.
Previous Model
Headcount reduction and offshoring manual processes to Accenture at lower cost — without re-engineering the underlying activity
Transitional Model
Performing difficult process re-engineering onshore first; moving from vertical business-unit finance structures to horizontal process ownership
Target Model
A high-capability Finance Centre of Excellence onshore, supported by a reduced, targeted Accenture scope — with AI, automation, and SAP S/4HANA at the core
Sweating the Systems Assets: SAP S/4HANA RISE
A major milestone was reached when the newly implemented SAP S/4HANA RISE platform went live in mid-August 2026. Despite this substantial investment, the organisation is not yet extracting sufficient value from the available functionality. One of the most striking challenges for the leadership team is a current lack of basic financial information and standard management-account-style reporting.
The incoming Director will have an immediate opportunity to "sweat the assets" — assessing adoption, identifying barriers, and aligning this core ERP platform with the future finance operating model. Beyond ERP, the role will leverage intelligent automation, generative AI, machine learning, and agentic workflows to fundamentally redesign finance processes rather than simply automating inefficient legacy structures.
- Assess current system usage and identify adoption barriers
- Determine under-utilised or ignored S/4HANA functionality
- Establish a coordinated ERP-to-operating-model alignment plan
- Deploy AI and automation to redesign, not merely digitise, legacy processes
Stakeholder Ecosystem
This role operates within a matrixed, sophisticated stakeholder environment. Navigating it effectively requires equal measures of credibility, cultural intelligence, and the courage to hold constructive, challenging conversations.
Helen — Group Finance Director
A deeply purpose-led leader who joined Centrica for its societal impact and green agenda. Values positive energy, mutual respect, and collaborative credibility. Brings direct Serco transformation experience. Your direct line manager.
Russell — Group CFO
An exceptional people-person, ambitious about automation and technology, but firmly controls-focused. Requires rigorous governance to ensure transformation does not compromise controls, create audit risk, or disrupt City reporting.
Arvind — CFO, Retail
Newly appointed and change-oriented, heading the largest finance population in the group. Historically Retail resisted central transformation — Arvind's arrival represents a more favourable environment for driving genuine change.
The Business Units
Centrica's businesses are not homogeneous. Managing a retail P&L is fundamentally different from overseeing a nuclear investment or an energy trading desk. The Director must identify the 80/20 commonality — where to standardise horizontally versus where a bespoke solution is genuinely required.
Ideal Candidate Profile
We are seeking a leader who combines strategic vision with genuine, hands-on delivery experience — someone who has lived with the operational consequences of transformation after a programme has gone live, not merely advised from the outside.
The Crucial Differentiator
Proven experience taking an organisation from low or relatively immature systems, data, and transformation capability towards high maturity. Candidates who have only operated in clean, digitally mature environments are less relevant than those who can navigate legacy ways of working, low data maturity, and significant change fatigue.
Finance Credibility
Genuine operational finance experience is non-negotiable. The ideal candidate has lived with the consequences of transformation after go-live — not spent their entire career as a pure consultant detached from the operational reality.
Technology Pragmatism
You need not be a technical coder or SAP developer. What is vital is that you understand the technology well enough to ask the right questions, identify adoption barriers, and know precisely which internal or external experts need to be "on the pitch" to deliver.
Partner Management
Strong experience managing complex supplier ecosystems and strategic delivery partners — Accenture, SAP, Microsoft — ensuring they deliver measurable outcomes rather than simply replicating manual processes offshore.
FTC-Scale Background
Experience leading transformation in complex, FTSE-scale, or highly regulated corporate environments.
The Success Roadmap
The incoming Director will be expected to demonstrate early credibility through deep listening and relationship-building, before moving rapidly into roadmap execution. Tangible delivery — productivity improvements, automation use cases, and visible SAP S/4HANA utilisation — will be the measure of success within the first year.
About Practicus: Inclusive Hiring for Purpose-Led Organisations
This appointment is being managed exclusively by Practicus, one of the UK's leading management consulting and executive recruitment firms specialising in Energy, Engineering & Infrastructure sector. Practicus is committed to inclusive, accessible, and equitable recruitment, and we take that commitment seriously at every stage of this process.
Our Commitment to Inclusion
Practicus is proud to be an inclusive employer and recruitment partner. We actively work to remove barriers that prevent talented people from applying for senior roles, and we welcome candidates from all backgrounds, identities, and lived experiences. We believe that diverse leadership teams build stronger, more resilient, and more impactful organisations.
We will make reasonable adjustments at every stage of the recruitment process for candidates who require them. If you have accessibility needs — whether for interviews, written assessments, or any other part of the process — please let us know at the earliest opportunity and we will accommodate them without question.
Accessibility & Support
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
Centrica are committed to building a workforce that reflects the communities it serves. This appointment will be conducted in full accordance with their EDI commitments.
Meet Your Practicus Recruitment Team
Your dedicated contacts at Practicus are here to guide you through every step of this executive search process. They are committed to ensuring a fair, transparent, and supportive experience for all candidates.
Natalie Allen — Head of Practice
Tel: +44 (0) 1491 637066
Email: natalie.allen@practicus.com
Michael Gater — Director of Search & Delivery
Tel: +44 (0) 1491 637090
Email: michael.gater@practicus.com
Chris Watson — Head of Delivery
Tel: +44 (0) 1491 637065
Email: chris.watson@practicus.com
