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Job Title:  Senior Commercial Finance Manager

Job Number:  79282

Why BAT Japan 
The Japan finance function is deliberately lean — your analysis reaches the leadership team without being rewritten three times on the way. 

  • A market-leading annual performance bonus (subject to eligibility) 

  • Health cover, transport support and a flexible holiday plan with additional incentives 

  • English and Japanese language training, delivered on company time 

  • A published capability framework for every role and grade — for you, and for the one to three people you'll be developing 

  • Global Top Employer for the ninth consecutive year — certified across five regions and a record 44 countries 

 

Tokyo, Japan · Full-time · Senior Manager 

Not the scorekeeper. The person in the room when the number is decided. 

BAT is a global multi-category consumer goods business. Our purpose is to create A Better Tomorrow™, with a vision to build a smokeless world: as at 31 December 2025, 34.1m consumers used our Smokeless Products, generating 18.2% of Group revenue, with an ambition of 50% of revenue from Non-Combustibles by 2035. Japan is one of the markets where the economics of that shift are being worked out in practice — which is what this job is for. 

The role 
You are the finance partner to Marketing and Trade in Japan, reporting to the Commercial Finance Controller and leading a team of one to three. You decide how we judge whether an investment worked, you challenge the business case before it goes forward, and you tell senior stakeholders things they would rather not hear. Sitting quietly and reporting the result is not what this seat is for. 

What you'll own 

  • The financial case behind Marketing and Trade strategy — brand and product profitability, pricing decisions, and where the money should go next 

  • Business cases for new product launches, and the honest review afterwards of whether the returns arrived 

  • Evaluation of marketing investment and customer investment with key retail accounts — including recommending we stop things 

  • Channel profitability and revenue growth analysis, and what the competitive picture means for our own plan 

  • The annual plan and quarterly budget process for the commercial functions, and the variance conversations with budget holders 

  • Controls and governance for marketing spend — tightened where needed, without strangling the creative work 

  • A team of one to three: their work, their development, and their exposure to the business 

What you'll bring 

  • Fluency with investment analysis — return on investment, net present value, scenario work — plus the commercial judgement to interpret it 

  • A working understanding of marketing and trade activity, so your challenge is credible to the people running it 

  • Experience of pricing and excise, and of a full company planning cycle 

  • The temperament to challenge senior people persuasively rather than combatively 

Qualifications 

  • 8+ years as a finance business partner, ideally in consumer goods 

  • Fluent Japanese and English 

Where this leads 
Typical next steps from this seat are Commercial Finance Controller, Corporate Finance Controller, or Finance Director in a small-to-mid-size market outside Japan. 

 

 

Whoever you are and wherever you're from, you can belong here — many nationalities, ages, genders and professional backgrounds, supported by Women in Leadership and B-United, our LGBTQ+ and allies network. Our Global Returners programme supports people restarting after time away from work. Need an adjustment during the process? Just tell us.


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