Finance Business Partnering Manager      

RwandAir Ltd is the flag carrier airline of Rwanda. It operates domestic and international services to East Africa, Central Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa, Europe and the Middle East from its main base at Kigali International Airport. Our mission is to provide unsurpassed, safe, and reliable services in air transportation, including strategically linking Rwanda with the outside world while ensuring a fair return on investment. As part of the expansion strategy, we are looking for interested, qualified, and competent candidates to fill the following position:

RwandAir is on a transformation journey — and Finance is at the center of it. We’re hiring a Finance Business Partnering Manager to act as the strategic finance partner to key business portfolios (Commercial, Operations, Technical, Ground Services, or Corporate). You’ll turn operational and commercial drivers into clear financial insight, shape decisions with senior leaders, and drive performance, profitability, and disciplined investment governance.

Are you ready to be the finance voice at the table where strategy becomes action.

This is a high-impact role in a Finance Leadership team shaping how RwandAir plans, measures performance, and makes investment decisions. You’ll help set the tone for disciplined execution and value delivery — with the opportunity to build stronger decision support, sharpen performance management, and leave a visible footprint across the airline.

Bonus points if you bring airline finance exposure across unit cost (CASK), route/product profitability, fleet/asset economics, and major vendor categories (fuel, handling, maintenance, crew/flight ops) — plus a strong grip on capital investment governance.

Job Title: Finance Business Partnering Manager

Reports to: Director Finance Business Partnering

Department: Finance

Location: Kigali International Airport

Job Purpose

To serve as the strategic finance partner to designated business portfolios (e.g., Commercial, Operations, Technical, Ground Services or Corporate functions), providing leadership on financial planning, performance management, investment governance, and value creation. The role leads end-to-end budgeting and forecasting, delivers insightful management reporting and variance analysis, builds robust business cases (including route/fleet or major operational initiatives where applicable), and drives disciplined cost management and profitability improvement. The Senior Finance Business Partner influences decision-making at senior levels by translating operational and commercial drivers into clear financial implications, ensuring financial controls, and enabling timely, data-driven actions aligned to the organisation’s strategy.

What You Will Own;

• Lead end-to-end procurement transformation across all categories — direct and indirect.
• Shape and execute procurement strategy aligned with enterprise-wide cost and value objectives.
• Build and empower a lean, agile, and accountable procurement team.
• Redesign procurement processes and governance in line with global standards.
• Partner closely with Finance, Operations, Legal, and Commercial teams to drive value and compliance.
• Bring strategic thinking, negotiation mastery, and a sharp eye for risk and opportunity.

1. Key Duties and Responsibilities:

1. Strategic

• Partner with leadership to shape and translate strategy into financially coherent plans, trade-offs, and measurable value levers.
• Provide commercial and operational insight to support strategic initiatives (e.g., network or capacity optimisation, fleet and asset utilisation, service/product initiatives, sustainability-related investments), quantifying financial impact and execution risks.
• Lead the annual budgeting process for the portfolio, ensuring alignment to corporate targets, strategy and performance improvement commitments.
• Drive capital governance for portfolio investments, ensuring prioritisation, affordability, value delivery, and post-implementation review/benefits tracking.
• Proactively identify structural cost opportunities and efficiency improvements; build cases for change and support implementation with performance tracking.
• Ensure management reporting aligns with corporate/finance definitions and supports consistent, comparable performance evaluation across the organisation.
• Contribute to finance transformation initiatives (systems, data, reporting and planning process redesign) to increase automation, transparency, and decision support capability.

2. Operational

• Build and sustain strong relationships with senior stakeholders, acting as a trusted advisor and constructive challenger to improve decision quality and financial outcomes.
• Own the monthly performance management cadence for assigned portfolios, including timely close support, management reporting packs, and executive-ready commentary on key drivers.
• Analyse and report actual revenues and costs; prepare root-cause variance analyses versus budget/forecast/prior year, highlighting risks and opportunities with clear actions.
• Develop, maintain and improve financial models that connect operational drivers (e.g., capacity, utilisation, productivity, crew/roster impacts, fuel burn, handling costs) to P&L and cash outcomes.
• Lead portfolio forecasting (periodic forecasts/rolling forecasts) ensuring assumptions are evidence-based, aligned to activity plans and translated into credible financial plans.
• Support the development and governance of business KPIs; define targets, monitor performance, and embed accountability through dashboards and review forums.
• Prepare and distribute management reports (cost centre, product/route, project or contract views as applicable) showing actuals vs budget, trend analysis, and forward outlook.
• Control spend to ensure cost targets are achieved; recommend, track and validate corrective measures, including benefits realisation for cost initiatives.
• Review business case proposals for incremental revenue, cost reduction, or service improvement (e.g., network changes, fleet/asset decisions, vendor sourcing, insource vs outsource), ensuring robust assumptions and sensitivity/scenario analysis.
• Review contracts and commercial/operational agreements for financial soundness, compliance, and value-for-money; support negotiations with fact-based insights.
• Identify and deliver process improvements in collaboration with Finance and business stakeholders, improving data quality, reporting efficiency, and standardisation of definitions.
• Provide ad hoc, high-impact analysis for senior management (e.g., profitability deep-dives, productivity, unit cost, driver-based planning, and performance recovery actions).
• Coach and mentor analysts/finance business partners (where applicable), setting standards for analysis quality, business partnering behaviours, and stakeholder service.
• Promote a culture of strong financial management, integrity, and continuous improvement across the portfolio and within Finance.
• Collaborate effectively with Accounting, Treasury, Procurement, Revenue Management/Commercial, Operations and other functions to resolve issues, improve controls, and deliver integrated outcomes.
• Perform other department duties related to his/her position as directed by the Head of the department.

3. Management & Leadership

• Establish the department or teams objectives and priorities to align with and support business objectives.
• Regularly evaluate the department or teams objectives, plans, procedures and practices, and makes appropriate changes if needed.
• Oversee and supervise employees. Direct daily activities, recruit, train, develop and discipline to ensure a high standard of service delivery.
• Train and develop other employees, to ensure succession planning is in place.
• Commit to and contribute towards the development of Rwandan National talent, by coaching the Rwandan National developees, preparing them for a career with boundless potential.

2. About You – Minimum Standard Qualifications;

Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, Finance, Economics, Statistics, or equivalent. Master’s degree is a plus.

Essential

• CICM/ACCA/CPA or equivalent.
• Minimum 6 years of progressively responsible experience in FP&A, commercial/operational finance, or finance business partnering, ideally within aviation/airline, transport, logistics or similarly complex, asset-intensive environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading budgeting/forecasting cycles, management reporting, and performance discussions with senior stakeholders.
• Professional qualification (ACCA, CIMA, CPA, CA or equivalent) and/or MBA.
• Experience in airline finance topics such as unit cost (CASK), route or product profitability, fleet/asset economics, major vendor cost categories (e.g., fuel, handling, maintenance, crew/flight ops), and capital investment governance.
• Strong understanding of credit risk assessment, debt recovery processes, and customer relationship management
• Proficiency in accounting software and ERP systems (e.g., SAP, Oracle), and strong Excel and reporting skills.

3. About You – Other Desired Competencies & Skills;

Essential

• Highly proficient in MS Office applications, particularly Excel and PowerPoint; able to develop clear, executive-ready insights.
• Strong financial modelling capability, including scenario/sensitivity analysis and investment appraisal (NPV/IRR/payback where applicable).
• Experience with finance ERP and planning/reporting tools; strong understanding of data structures, controls, and reporting definitions.
• Excellent analytical skills with the ability to translate operational and commercial drivers into financial implications and actionable recommendations.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills; able to challenge constructively and build trust with non-financial leaders.
• Sound judgement, problem-solving and prioritisation skills; ability to manage multiple concurrent priorities and deliver to short deadlines.
• Continuous improvement mindset with proven ability to streamline processes and improve reporting efficiency and data quality.
• Strong communication skills (written and verbal) suitable for both expert and non-financial audiences; excellent English language capability.
• Strong working knowledge of relevant accounting/finance standards, principles, policies and governance expectations (e.g., IFRS/GAAP as applicable).

3. How to Apply:

• An application letter addressed to the Chief HR & Administration Officer;

• Recent Curriculum Vitae;
• Copies of Notarised Degree/Diploma certificates
• Relevant certificates;
• Copies of academic papers;
• A photocopy of the Passport/National ID
• Three referees

The deadline for submitting application documents (in PDF Format Only) is May 13^th, 2026. Please apply via the link: https://erecruitment.rwandair.com/