Neil from Finance

• • Finance

  • Claire
  • Andreia
  • Neil

I am a newly qualified CIMA graduate, who prior to working at AstraZeneca studied Accountancy at Sheffield University.

"With AstraZeneca’s culture of a ‘work-life balance', you are well rewarded for achieving your targets." Neil

Due to AstraZeneca’s size and influence as an employer in my hometown of Loughborough I have always been aware of its excellent reputation as an ‘Employer of Choice. And with knowing the opportunities available to its employees, and the CIMA scheme enabling job rotation and a fast track to qualifying, it made it stand out to me as an ideal place to work after I had graduated.

I have been at AZ, based at Alderely Park, for 3 years, of which I spent my first 1½ years within Group Financial Reporting as a Systems Accountant.  

My current role is within the Central Finance area of Operations.  Under this role, my main responsibilities are Global Stock Reporting and assisting in the Annual Budget Product Cost submission.  Both these roles prove to be very challenging, but at the same time diverse, highly informative on AZs Global Operations Strategy, and enables networking with a broad range of AZs Finance Community across all area of the business.

On a day-to-day basis I deal with a range of Ad Hoc Queries from a variety of finance areas in AZ, I have the opportunity to get involved in numerous finance projects through out the year, and also have a few Overseas Business trips in the year.  The role requires good computer literacy, and the need to be able to exploit and assist in enhancing relevant reporting systems.  Furthermore, my communication skills are regularly tested due to constant contact with our foreign colleagues.

My role, as with most in AstraZeneca require good organisational skills in order to be able to deal with short deadlines, and a fluctuating workload.  However, with AstraZeneca’s culture of a ‘Work-Life’ Balance, you are well rewarded for achieving your targets.

I see AstraZeneca as an excellent organisation to work in, due to it being such a diverse and truly International company.  This provides opportunities for me to work in a variety of roles within AZ, and with there being regular career development appraisals, and a clear capabilities matrix to track against, I feel that my career development is well planned, and well placed with AZ.