Business Controller at Gucci in Mumbai

Job Description

Role Mission:

This position reports directly to the Chief Accountant, India and is a strong business partner to the Tax Compliance Manager. This position is based in Mumbai and partners closely with other functions. This role is responsible for effective financial management, ensuring right tracking of profitability for various business channels, with the goal to further accelerate and support decision-making process when assessing business opportunities of an aggressive corporate strategy developed to achieve or exceed business and financial objectives of the region. It is also responsible for managing procure to pay (P2P) processes and transactions, monitoring disbursement and expenditure as well as strengthening internal controls to ensure quality delivery of the accounts payable function.

Key Accountabilities

Financial Management & Reporting:

• Responsible for management reporting, business performance reporting, variance analysis by providing timely and accurate financial information to management team and corporate to support strategic decision-making process;
• Safeguard the company assets and ensure integrity of the financial processes and reporting by implementing appropriate internal controls within the company;
• Manage the upkeep of corporate governance standards and measures and ensuring compliance to statutory requirements;
• Review, update and ensure standard operating procedures (SOPs) are in place and practiced upon across all relevant Functional teams;
• Maintain strong financial controls, including review of reconciliations for all general ledger and bank accounts;
• Review and be hands on to prepare and post all journal entries affecting the general ledger as required;
• Liaise with internal and external auditors and government authorities on auditing;
• Identify and streamline finance processes, ERP system and further software integration;
• Develop and implement risk management strategies, including but not limited to ensuring adequate infrastructure to support operations and minimise financial and legal risk exposure;
• Manage controlling activities by structuring, preparing, and presenting reports and analyses by channel for management and other departments
• Set targets / KPI for Receivables and Payables for working capital requirements
• Prepare ad-hoc business analysis for management

Procure-to-pay (P2P) Management:

• Manage business expense, process inter-company & 3rd party vendor invoices, perform pre & post payment control checks, ensuring timely delivery and compliance with corporate and statutory requirements;
• Manage treasury, credit controls and cash management to maximize liquidity for daily operational requirements;
• Monitor key operational metrics that measure/assess accounts payable performance and drive continuous improvement;
• Work cross-functionally to define, implement, and monitor AP processes and procedures that drive efficiencies, ease of use, scalability, integration with financial systems, end-to-end transparency, and an excellent user experience;
• Address stakeholder and vendor queries;
• Assist in all areas relating to year-end statutory reporting including Audits, Corporate tax and GST submissions (includes preparation of audit schedules, managing audit queries and issues).
• Support corporate objective of becoming 100% paperless, to the extent that is compliant with local regulatory requirements (re-designing controls, practices and processes)

Qualifications

Work Experience

• Minimally a degree in Finance/Business/Accounting, Management PG with CPA or CA is an advantage;
• 7+ years of relevant experience within a multinational environment, preferably in luxury/fashion retail/service industry.

Other Skills and Abilities

• Strong analytical and numeric skills with budgeting, forecasting, and planning exposure.
• Exceptionally strong operational accounting background, able to pay high attention to detail and a strong, professional work ethic and with exposure in a compliance role;
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills at any level of the organization.
• Excellent interpersonal skills (e.g. tact/diplomacy, persuasion, cooperation, ability to motivate others)
• Hands on approach to problem solving and the ability to work under pressure;
• Ability to manage competing demands and prioritize initiatives in a fluid, dynamic and sometimes ambiguous environment.
• Good team player with proven ability to partner with business leaders.
• Customer service-oriented attitude, driven by meeting and exceeding KPIs and targets
• Time management and prioritizing skills
• Ability to be flexible and agile to meet business needs
• Strong knowledge in technology to improve processes and automation level and with experience on ERP (JD Edwards, SAP and Hyperion a plus).
• Advance proficiency in MS Office Suite, especially Excel
• Big 4 audit training is a plus.