Financial Controller
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Key skills for this role
About the Role
Independent Food Company seeks a Financial Controller to lead the Finance Center of Excellence, owning financial reporting integrity and controls across multiple brands and geographies.
Key Skills for This Role
Responsibilities
- Build the Finance Center of Excellence on five pillars: single chart of accounts, standard close calendar, documented controls, technology automation, and service level agreements with brands.
- Own month end close: sign off financial statements per entity, ensure 5 working day close cycle.
- Embed segregation of duties and maker checker on journals, balance sheet recons, vendor master, bank detail changes, and payment release.
- Lead prior year cleanup: supervise external secondment team clearing historical audit findings.
- Direct oversight of UAE VAT/CT, UK CT/VAT, transfer pricing, ESR, AML/KYC for vendors, UBO registration.
- Establish single source of truth for COA, vendor master, customer master, cost centres, projects/WBS.
- Build and maintain policy and SOP library for every transaction class.
- Primary contact for external auditors, manage audit timeline, drive control environment improvements.
- Coach Sr Accountants, fill critical vacancies, build succession bench.
- Publish SLAs to brands; provide clean, timely actuals to FP&A.
Requirements
- Qualified accountant (CA, ACCA, CPA or equivalent)
- 10 15 years progressive finance experience
- 4+ years as Financial Controller, Head of Finance, or CoE leadership
- Multi entity, multi jurisdiction exposure (UAE + UK essential)
- F&B, hospitality, or multi outlet retail background strongly preferred
- Strong NetSuite (or equivalent ERP) expertise
- Experience integrating ERP with operational systems
Full Job Posting
Role Purpose
- Lead the Finance Center of Excellence (CoE) for back end accounting across the group. Own the integrity, control, and compliance of all financial reporting — and build the standardised platform that allows the CoE to scale across brands and geographies.
Scope of Function (Phase 1)
- General Accounting — month end close, journal entries, balance sheet reconciliations, entity level financials across all current entities
- AR & Revenue Accounting — revenue recognition, AR ageing, customer & aggregator reconciliation, cash recon
- Tax & Compliance — UAE VAT and Corporate Tax, UK tax (Public entity), Transfer Pricing documentation, regulatory filings
- Treasury & Master Data — bank account governance, banking relationships, chart of accounts, vendor & customer master data, project / WBS structure
- Project Accounting absorbed into GA — projects become a coding dimension, not a function
- Phase 2 (~6–9 months in): Accounts Payable merges into the function, expanding scope to ~12 direct or matrixed reports
Key Responsibilities
- Build the CoE on five pillars: (1) single chart of accounts and master data; (2) standard close calendar and ledger discipline; (3) documented controls and maker checker everywhere; (4) technology that does the work, not the people; (5) service level agreements with the brands.
- Own month end close: Sign off financial statements per entity, ensure a 5 working day close cycle, lead the close calendar across all functions.
- Embed segregation of duties and maker checker: Implement maker checker on journals, balance sheet recons, vendor master, bank detail changes, and payment release.
- Lead prior year cleanup: Supervise external secondment team (3–6 months) clearing historical audit findings, restating positions where required, building the BSR pack going forward.
- Tax & compliance ownership: Direct oversight of UAE VAT/CT, UK CT/VAT, transfer pricing, ESR, AML/KYC for vendors, UBO registration.
- Master data governance: Establish single source of truth for COA, vendor master, customer master, cost centres, projects/WBS. No brand creates GL codes or vendors without CoE sign off.
- Build & maintain policy and SOP library: Ensure every transaction class has a documented policy and SOP, version controlled, periodically reviewed.
- External audit relationship: Primary contact for external auditors, manage audit timeline, address management letter points, drive control environment improvements.
- Develop the team: Coach Sr Accountants, fill critical vacancies, build a succession bench, partner with HR on capability building.
- Partner with brands and FP&A: Publish SLAs to brands; provide clean, timely actuals to FP&A; support business cases and investment reviews with reliable data.
- Scale the platform: Year 2 deliverable — make the CoE replicable for a new geography or brand addition without redesigning the model.
Qualifications & Experience
- Qualified accountant — CA, ACCA, CPA, or equivalent (mandatory)
- 10–15 years progressive finance experience, including 4+ years as Financial Controller, Head of Finance, or CoE leadership
- Multi entity, multi jurisdiction exposure — UAE + UK essential
- F&B, hospitality, or multi outlet retail background strongly preferred
- Demonstrated experience building or transforming a finance function from fragmented to controlled
- Strong NetSuite (or equivalent ERP) expertise; experience integrating ERP with operational systems
- Excellent communicator able to partner with operations and senior leadership
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