Regional Financial Controller

JOB DESCRIPTION

Main accountabilities include but not limited to: 

Leadership and Management

• Provide leadership and people management to the team, role model British Council values and EDI in day-to-day interactions with colleagues at all levels. Ensure high levels of professionalism are demonstrated by everyone and that client and customer needs are reflected in ways of working.
• Champion financial accounting, providing a good standard of financial insight and financial discipline.
• Build a culture of continuous learning and improvement and promote learning from our experience across the unit and wider organisation.
• Coach and support team members ensuring performance management as per corporate policies.

Financial Management

• Lead the provision of retained in-country specific activities/processes, local, complex statutory/tax reporting, managing retained banking responsibilities, liaising with local authorities, supporting sanctioned countries and management of escalations raised by in-country teams and the MSP.
• Responsible for Treasury and Liquidity management of British Council operations and subsidiaries including review and approval of cashflow forecasts, management of trapped/restricted cash and forex risk within the region. Oversee implementation of currency re-denomination/changes and new payment solutions in countries.
• Implement tax strategy, planning and optimization across the area and responsible for local tax compliance for subsidiaries, leading tax review/filing/use of specialist tax consultants. Develop appropriate response to developments and changes in the local commercial and tax regime to integrate into statutory strategies and processes in consultation with Finance leadership and appropriate UK legal, tax and finance organizations. Includes overseeing successful implementation of Status & Tax projects.
• Oversee provision of country financial data to central UK teams required to support centralized reporting. Includes overseas UK staff local benefits data to support tax reporting.
• Oversee In-Country statutory reporting processes and the provision of information to internal / Tax /external auditors including support of closed client funded project audits. Oversee the implementation and report on the progress of audit recommendations. Identify and challenge issues and bring resolution in relation to financial accounting matters.
• Provide local context input to financial process COE team and GPOs to enable development of local solutions to global policies & procedures in complex operating environments to ensure smooth delivery whilst maintaining compliance and ensuring proper documentation.

Relationship and Stakeholder Management

• Lead stakeholder engagement and business partnering for retained financial processes, building strong working relationships with key stakeholders and the MSP to ensure that activities comply with professional accounting standards, technical accounting issues and other external reporting requirements in British Council.
• Support Regional Director and Country Directors on cross functional issues requiring financial control input/expertise. These may include country/operations closure/downsizing, regional savings targets’ projects, asset disposals, financial management solutions for countries in conflict/crisis and operations in non-represented countries.
• Advisory support on procurement, review of contracts, discussion with vendors on key tax issues/payments

Sector/subject expertise

• Provide guidance and advice on professional accounting standards, local accounting and reporting requirements, technical accounting issues and other external reporting requirements in British Council. Liaise with other specialist finance functions such as Tax, Treasury, Finance Policy, and Global Process Owners as needed. Pro-actively identify unusual or complex transactions and recommend appropriate professional accounting treatments. Produce periodic reports relating to financial accounting.

Service Improvement

• Develop, manage, and execute plans for implementation of new or updated accounting and reporting requirements in line with professional accounting standards; communicate change effectively with internal stakeholders, ensure appropriate training.
• Work alongside the transformation team to centralise and move activity to an MSP environment. Drive and ensure implementation of the financial procedures, policies, and systems necessary to meet the organisation’s global reporting.
• Support and contribute towards process standardization and further optimization of the Financial Control operating model. 

Role specific skills

• Strong communication and influencing skills, able to relay complex financial information in an easy-to-understand way.
• Well-developed analytical skills.
• Highly organised and deadline oriented.
• Building relationships at all levels of the organisation.
• Flexibility, independence, and initiative to perform successfully in a rapidly changing environment.

Minimum/essential

• A significant number of active years of financial controllership and related experience. Experience of leading a geographically dispersed and culturally diverse team.
• Experience of leading a finance team supporting multiple business models with varying funding streams on a large scale.
• Experience of working in a matrix management structure.
• Knowledge of Professional Accounting Standards
• SAP/ERP experience.

Desirable

• Shared Services Operations.
• Leadership of change projects/initiatives.

Education/Qualifications

• Higher Education
• Qualified accountant with considerable experience post-qualification.

Language Requirements

• The British Council systems and global processes operate in English. Written and verbal proficiency in English is required