A world leading, Fortune 500-sized ($3bn t/o; 10,000 employees) listed manufacturing business, consistently voted as ‘one of the best businesses to work for’ is looking for an Internal Controls Manager, Europe (reporting directly to the Regional Head of Internal Controls, who in turn reports to the Global Head of Internal Controls, VP).
The role location is very flexible and whilst the office is in Milan, you only are required to be there approximately once a fortnight, so it will largely require home / remote working and some manageable & minimal travel to the key regional offices and businesses within the Group.
The Group operates in more than 50 countries in 100+ operating units and is seen as the global leader in nearly all the markets in which it operates. The company’s market capitalisation has more-than trebled in the last 5 years, and that is largely due to, and perhaps most importantly due to the fact that it truly values its people. They actively encourage innovation & ingenuity, support each other. As part of this, they are passionate about recruiting the best possible talent into their business. I’m proud to say that I have recruited everyone in the new joiners to the internal audit, risk, and controls teams for this globally over the last 8 years, and all of these people are still with the company, although most have been promoted into bigger role since.
A key area of focus is the establishment of a Group-wide internal controls framework which sets a consistent minimum standard of controls expected within each Group business and can act as a baseline for the implementation of any regulatory internal control requirements. The Controls department will work closely with the Group Head of Internal Audit and Group Head of Internal Controls to develop the Group standard internal control framework before taking ownership of the roll-out, implementation and embedding of the framework across the Group.
You will support the Controls team to design and develop the Group’s internal control framework, and ultimately test against the internal controls framework across the Group, covering all 100+ operating units, as part of a high-profile, and fast-growing international team of “Regional Control Champions” based across the Group’s key geographic regions, in the Americas, EMEA and AsiaPac (currently 7 people, but likely to grow to be c.10-15 people).
As part of this work, you will:
- identify opportunities for improvement and efficiency through automation of control activities.
- assist the local process owners in the creation of local process narrative/maps relating to the controls being evaluated.
- agree any control gaps identified with the local process owner and agree proposed remediation actions with the local management.
- identify and oversee the status of remediation activity, ensuring actions are closed on a timely basis.
- ensure process and control alignment with any changes arising from ERP implementations.
- work with the Head of Internal Audit’s team, internal stakeholders in the businesses, the Big - 4 partner and external auditors (including local teams) to ensure alignment on views and approach as the project progresses.
- provide regular project updates and progress reports to senior stakeholders, including the Business Leadership Teams, Director of Group Finance, Head of Internal Audit, Group CFO and Group Audit Committee.
- act as a champion throughout the Group for the concepts of strong governance, internal control and risk management, sharing learnings and good practice across the business.
- be a subject matter expert for specific process/processes in scope for the programme.
We are looking for a controls, audit, advisory, finance or risk advisory professional (albeit likely early in your career - with probably 3-7 years’ experience), with training in a Big 4 / Top 10, a commercial business, or a mix of the two. Experience of accounting and reporting issues faced by a global, publicly listed Group reporting under IFRS; and of rolling out and/or operating in a Controls/ Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) environment would be an advantage. A professional qualification, e.g. CPA, CA, CIA, ACCA, ACA, etc. would be an advantage, but not essential.
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