Welcome to Finance Function.

In your first challenge, you’re meeting with Paulo, a

newly promoted Marketing Manager, to review the figures for a Signal toothpaste
promotion which includes a free travel toothbrush with each purchase. Reviewing the
figures before the meeting, you’re concerned that the promotion will cost 10% of
the total marketing budget for this brand, which would be the largest spend on a
single promotion for that brand to date. You’d also like to see a stronger return
on investment and more financial controls in place. At the start of the meeting
it’s clear that Paulo is passionate about the promotion going ahead … and quickly.
He predicts it will be a key lever in regaining market share from the competition
and is keen to make a positive start to his new role. So tell me

• How would you go about winning Paulo’s respect and trust?

• How would you share your concerns with Paulo?

• How would ensure Paulo takes your concerns seriously?

• How would you go about building an ongoing relationship?

In this second challenge, You’ve been given four days to prepare a presentation to
the Vice President of Personal Care in Kenya on the impact of a community product
awareness campaign for Lifebuoy soap. You’d normally ask both members of your team
to help you to prepare for this, including: sourcing data from different
departments; analysing and interpreting the data; and preparing the presentation
materials. Unfortunately one member of your team is on holiday for the next five
days. So I would like to hear from you:

• How would you approach organising this project?

• What is the most important priority here?

• How else would you ensure you and your team member perform well in this task?