Senior Commercial Finance Business Partner

Who we are Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership, so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards.   As democracies, we believe we have a special responsibility to be thoughtful about the development and deployment of powerful technologies like AI. We take this responsibility seriously.   We are an ambitious and committed team of engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing programme managers.  We are looking for mission-driven people to join our European teams – and apply their skills to solve the most complex and impactful problems. We embrace an open and transparent culture that welcomes healthy debates on the use of technology in defence, its benefits, and its ethical implications.   The role At Helsing, we are not just scaling software; we are building state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing facilities and managing complex physical supply chains to deliver software-defined hardware capabilities.  As our Senior Commercial Finance Business Partner, you will sit within our Commercial Finance function. You will act as the strategic co-pilot to our R&D Directors, Heads of Manufacturing, and Procurement leaders. This is not a backward-looking reporting role, you will be the commercial engine driving investment decisions. You will build, review, and challenge multi-million-euro business cases, track program-level IRR and NPV, and ensure that our aggressive investments in R&D and manufacturing capacity yield robust long-term profitability. This role requires a rare blend of deep commercial acumen, world-class financial modeling skills, and a strong understanding of industrial unit economics (from R&D labs to factory floors and tier-1 supplier networks). The day-to-day Lead the financial appraisal of new initiatives, building and stress-testing complex business cases for major R&D programmes, software features, and physical hardware platforms Model and continuously track key investment metrics, including IRR, NPV, Payback Period, and ROIC, to guide capital allocation across competing engineering projects Evaluate capital expenditure proposals for manufacturing scale-up, including investments in automated production lines, testing facilities, and specialized tooling Lead cross-functional financial evaluations to determine whether to build capabilities in-house or source them externally, presenting clear, data-driven recommendations to the leadership team Product Unit Economics, R&D & Supply Chain Finance: Partner with engineering teams to embed financial discipline from day one of the product lifecycle and track Bill of Materials (BOM) cost evolution from early-stage R&D prototyping through to full-rate series production Collaborate with Procurement and Supply Chain teams to map global supplier networks, analyze material and logistical cost drivers, support supplier negotiations with cost-insight data, and run lean cost-improvement workshops Work closely with the supply chain and treasury teams to manage inventory levels, mitigate obsolescence risk, and optimize working capital profiles for long-lead-time components. Defense Program Performance & Pricing Strategy: Support Commercial and Business Development teams on major defense bids and build pricing and margin models that reflect the nuances of various defense contract structures (e.g., fixed-price incentive, cost-plus, milestone billing) Own the financial tracking of major programs, monitor actual performance against business-case baselines, quickly identifying margin leakage, supply chain cost overruns, or R&D slippages, and co-develop corrective action plans Develop, track, and present commercial KPI dashboards (such as Gross Margin, Contribution Margin, Cost-to-Serve, and Cost-Variance-at-Completion) to programme leadership and senior finance executives. You should apply if you Bring strong post-qualification experience holding a recognized professional finance qualification (CIMA, ACCA, ACA, or equivalent) Have highly advanced Excel and financial modeling capabilities, you must be comfortable building DCF, IRR, NPV, and complex scenario-analysis models from scratch Have a proven track record in a commercial finance or business partnering role within high-tech manufacturing, aerospace, defense, deep tech, automotive, or capital-intensive engineering Bring extensive experience building, presenting, and defending robust business cases to senior executives, with a healthy appetite for challenging operational assumptions Are familiari with European defense procurement processes (e.g., German Bundeswehr, UK MoD) and the commercial auditing requirements of government cost-plus contracts Can translate complex financial concepts into actionable insights for non-finance professionals (engineers, software developers, and procurement managers) and i