Financial Controller

The Finance team’s vision is to partner with the Group in driving profitable growth, through finance excellence. We support our businesses to make effective commercial and operational decisions; provide information and analysis to management and the Board to support strategic decisions; manage working capital to quickly convert profit into cash; develop and maintain a strong control environment to comply with legal, statutory and tax legislation in all territories we operate in. 

With over 100 Finance professionals operating from offices in London, New York, Hong Kong & Gurugram, this role works with finance and business colleagues from around the globe to deliver the Finance vision.

The Finance Team:

• be part of our Finance team reshaping our processes and the technology we use
• work closely with finance and business colleagues from around the globe
• ability to influence in an organisation of 1,600 people

This is a Senior Management role with responsibilities covering:

• Financial reporting, accounting and audit
• Group risk and compliance
• Treasury

The position reports into the Director of Group Finance and will form a close working partnership with the Shared Services finance team based in India.

Key Accountabilities:

Financial accounting, reporting and audit

• Support our India reporting leadership teams with best practice, process improvement and accounting manual maintenance and be UK point of contact for stakeholders in these processes along with:
• Review of the Group and subsidiary financial and reporting processes
• Support of Group and subsidiary external audits.
• Review and input on Group Annual and Interim Reports and subsidiary statutory accounts
• Assessing the impact of new accounting standards on the business and working with Shared Services to implement changes to accounting practices, reporting and restatement of results.
• Providing accounting technical advice in relation to complex or unusual transactions.
• Monitoring the performance of the Shared Service function and broader finance functions in particular with regard to compliance with group accounting policy and guidelines
• Group restructuring, legal entity simplification and distributable reserves planning.
• Oversight of APAC region accounting and filing delivery

Risk and compliance

• Overseeing the planning and coordination of the Group’s risk review process and tracking progress.
• Ensuring compliance with relevant legislation and regulations impacting on the finance function, through implementation and adherence to internal policies. Investigate irregularities, instances of fraud and non-compliance issues.
• Overseeing the compliance onboarding of vendors and customers in the business.
• Co-ordinating the work of the outsourced internal audit function.
• Managing the Group insurance programme stakeholders.

Treasury

• Proactively managing group and regional liquidity needs while maximising facility usage and deposit returns
• Robust cashflow process to anticipate financing needs and understand deviations from expectations
• Proactively managing foreign exchange exposures
• Reporting to regular Treasury and Audit & Risk Committees
• Overseeing the management of banking relationships
• Overseeing a robust banking and treasury control environment ensuring strong internal and anti-fraud controls are maintained in line with policies and procedures
• Partnering with the business to ensure Group Finance objectives are met with regard to managing Economist subscriber payments
• Delivery of process and system improvements to drive efficiencies around treasury activities 

Other

• Experience in delivering systems and process change, preferably an ERP transformation
• Supporting on delivery of finance improvement projects in systems and processes
• Senior leader in team driving best practice cross team collaboration and initiatives

Experience, skills and professional attributes

Education and training

- Qualified Accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA)

• Previous work experience and knowledge 
•      - Preparation of Annual Reports to shareholders and statutory accounts
•      - Strong technical accounting knowledge
•      - Managing accounting functions including qualified accountant]
• Knowledge of laws and regulations relevant to companies and finance functions
• Audit coordination
• Treasury knowledge
• Knowledge of internal financial control frameworks
• Business risks and insurance

Technology

• ERP knowledge, Peoplesoft (an advantage)
• Strong excel

Languages

• English
• Key skills 
• Analytical approach to problem solving 
• Managing teams
• Attention to detail
• Development of processes
• Communication
• Delivering change and continuous improvement
• Developing relationships with internal and external contacts

Personal attributes

• Commitment to quality and timely service delivery
• Hands-on approach
• Ability to multi-task and prioritize
• Pro-activity and responsiveness
• Consultative
• Making appropriate judgments
• Ability to provide well-presented information and insightful analysis of information

Interpersonal skills

• Clear communicator of views and opinions
• Ability to build networks and work with stakeholders and in teams
• Sensitivity in providing views  
• Assertion
• Clear communicator of views and opinions

Performance Measures:

• Ability to deliver financial reports on time with no surprises
• Ability to manage liquidity requirements and minimise foreign exchange volatility
• Clarity of instructions issued and reports delivered
• Compliance environment understood, strengthened, and number of compliance issues decreased
• Cleanliness of internal and external audit reports 
• Efficiency of Group structure in place
• Good relationships across the business and with the Shared Services team

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