Group Financial Controller

Private Equity backed high-growth Data Centre business is looking for a qualified and experienced Group Financial Controller to join its Finance team, reporting to the Group Finance Director, and managing a team of 6 direct and 7 indirect reports.

The organisations is enjoying an exciting period of growth and have a strong culture of progression and development. However this is a demanding role which requires a robust and committed individual. It will work closely with the Group FD and CFO as well as the wider Executive Group, and will chair the weekly Controller Committee.

The culture is dynamic, agile and busy and for the reason they operate a 5 day office based working policy (albeit whist offering agile working for those occasions when home working is required).

The GFC is one of the senior finance leaders within the Group Finance team that is responsible for the external reporting, shareholder reporting, technical accounting, implementation of appropriate policies, procedures, and processes to ensure an effective control environment across the Group. The role is also involved in providing key strategic information to Regional Managing Directors and the C-Suite to inform decision making and drive business performance.

It is accountable to the Audit Committee and works closely with Group’s external auditors to ensure that the Group is compliant with all relevant local accounting policies and that the annual reports and accounts give a true and fair view of the state of the Group’s affairs and that the Group financial statements have been properly prepared in accordance with relevant accounting standards in all jurisdictions in which the Group operates.

This role is also involved on key finance projects including but not limited to systems implementation, finance transformation and shareholder related transactions.  

Core roles and responsibilities

 

• Continuous enhancement of all Group financial reporting processes: Ownership of the Group’s financial control function including the transformation of existing global reporting processes. Lead improvements in technology and systems, enhance reporting capabilities, and improve controls.  Management and governance of the ongoing development and enhancement of all finance process and related policies. Liaising as required with key stakeholders both internally and externally including the C-suites, external auditors, regulators, and consultants. 

• Strategic collaboration with Yardi Support and IT team: Partner with the technology team to a craft a roadmap for systems development. Ensure our systems are poised to meet evolving needs of a growing business, guaranteeing their suitability as we scale in size and complexity. Engage with external suppliers to demonstrate and shortlist the solutions required to deliver the systems development. 

• Continuous improvement: Identifying and leading projects across finance as part of the continuous improvement including new systems implementation, finance transformation and selection of suppliers to provide the required solutions. 

• Improve system design and integration: Oversee the transformation of systems design and integrations ensuring seamless flow of data across all Finance systems. 

• Management: Leadership of five direct staff and responsible for chairing the Group’s site financial controller forum and indirectly assist in managing the rest of the finance team. Managing all day-to-day accounting operations, includes Billing, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Cost Accounting, Inventory Accounting and Revenue Recognition 

• Streamline month end reporting: Take charge of the global month end reporting process, ensuring timely reporting of monthly results to internal and external stakeholders. Focus on streamlining the month end reporting process for quicker, more efficient reporting and providing deeper insights into results. 

• Finance business partner: Providing financial analysis to commercial team and C-suite to support financial decisions and budget process. 

• Management reporting: Contributing to the consolidated monthly management accounts for the debtors and cash-flow reporting, and ad-hoc reporting to business with the ability to refresh and develop reporting to ensure it remains insightful and fit for purpose.
• Working capital management: Coordinating the management of cash flow, debt and debt collection, including dealing with customer queries in support of local teams and/or Group Commercial team.
• Annual and interim external reporting: Lead the production of annual and interim reports, collaboration with legal, brand and commercial.  Prepare reports for presentation to the Board and Audit Committee. Key point of contact for the company’s ESG financial reporting and act as the representative in external forums.
• Enhancement of internal control: Development and documentation of strong internal controls framework to support rapid future growth.  Worth with external consultants where required to develop improvements to the control environment.

• Audit management: Overseeing the Group’s annual audit process, and the primary contact and accountable individual to the external audit teams including the audit partner.  Engage with the Group’s overseas parent auditors as part of the year end audit. 

• Provision of high-quality technical accounting advice: Maintenance of up-to-date technical knowledge of IFRS within the team – ownership of group and subsidiary accounting policies.  Foster cross departmental collaboration to produce high quality accounting technical papers for internal and external partners, reinforcing our commitment to transparency and accuracy.
• Treasury accounting: Ownership of covenant compliance including coordinating with banks where required. Provision of tax and treasury team including the provision of inter-company loan, bond and hedge accounting.

Requirements:

• ACA qualified (or overseas equivalent) with solid PQE
• IFRS 16 experience as well as solid Financial Reporting and Controls and Consolidations / Group Reporting experience essential
• Candidates should be at Group FC, FC, Head of Financial Reporting, or Head of Finance leave or equivalent
• Property, Real Estate, Construction, Data Centre or Infrastructure sector experience essential.
• Ideally candidates will come from PE backed or Listed businesses, but will consider candidate from any well-established medium to large firms.
• Solid management / leadership experience essential (ideally teams of at least 4)
• Candidates must be happy to be office based (London) 5 days a week
• Candidate must have gravitas, excellent communication skills and the ability to multi-task and prioritise
• Advanced excel and ERP Systems experience essential

• Motivated self-starter who can work largely unsupervised