Digital Finance and Transformation Lead, Enterprise Performance

Job description:

We are seeking a Digital Finance and Transformation Lead that will lead a team responsible for driving the adoption of emerging technologies across the Finance function. This includes, but is not limited to, development of ERP tools for delivering financial performance and audits, integration into cloud platforms, adoption of data analytics, and visualisation and robotics tools, as well as incorporating technologies such as artificial intelligence (machine learning and natural language processing) and GenAI as they scale up. As the Digital Finance Lead, the individual needs to be well acquainted with evolving industry practices and tools: implementing a framework for opportunity identification to prioritise areas for transformation; managing staff for continuous scanning of latest technology developments and assessing relevance to organisation and business needs.

As this is a leadership role, you are responsible for winning sponsorship for projects, which involves presenting to senior management forums, undertaking detailed business case and ROI analysis, and developing critical success factors and parameters for funding. You will act as a bridge between IT and finance, effectively translating between the needs of accountants and the language of product functionality and design choices. You will be the chief advocate responsible for chartering and moving the finance team to embrace emerging technology that will radically change the way we work. Your team will champion change, adopting a practical problem-solving approach that can find a pathway from the current to target finance operating model.

In addition, you will also deliver and support on strategic initiatives as part of the transformation of the Group's finance organization towards Next Generation Digital Finance. This entails delivering transformation initiatives across the pillars of System, Process, Upskilling and Re-culturing, with a primary focus in creating and implementing change strategies and plans that will maximize employee adoption.

Responsibilities:

• Understand current digital model: Building a clear picture of existing processes and technologies, pain points/bottlenecks, use of legacy or outdated systems, and resultant impacts such as missed revenue opportunities, employee or end-user dissatisfaction.
• Define target digital model: providing a comprehensive vision and roadmap that reimagines business and operating models across multiple teams and divisions, considering organisation and external market realities. Be able to articulate benefits, synergies between projects and risks/dependencies and prepare a delivery roadmap.
• Management across lifecycle: Overseeing and leading activities across projects, and with line management across multiple types of stakeholders for requirements gathering, defining details of the specific problem to be solved, unpacking the proposed solution and breaking it down into digestible components.
• Plan and implement changes to the finance organization, as necessary, with a focus on change management especially in working through resistance at team and individual level, to the target operating model through step-by-step methodology.
• Ensure good corporate governance, compliance with accounting standards, Companies Act and any other applicable laws and regulations of the Company and the Group.
• Direct ongoing work process assessments and identify and implement improvements to policies, procedures, internal controls, and tools/automations that realise greater operating efficiencies and enhanced customer service support.
• Continuously develop and lead initiatives that will encourage cross-collaboration amongst various functions within the Finance teams.
• Collaborate with other functional and upstream business units to ensure that the downstream impacts to finance processes are understood.
• Carry out any other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Requirements:

• Degree-qualified, ideally in Accounting and Finance. Professional qualifications e.g. CA, CPA are pre-requisites for the role.
• A minimum of 15 years of experience, of which some must be in a supervisory/leadership position. The assigned job grade/title will commensurate with experience.
• Proven track record of finance/digital transformation, with experience in leading major system implementations and finance operating model changes in either a project management role and/ or as a change lead role.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, effective in stakeholder engagement, hands-on, driven and possesses a change agent mindset.
• Ability to work in a dynamic and fast-paced environment, perform highly detailed work on multiple, concurrent tasks, with the drive to manage change, ambiguity, uncertainties and deliver within tight deadlines.
• Well-versed in key financial processes within Controllers, Transaction Processing, or Commercial Finance teams, with the ability to challenge existing methods and recommend improvements to align with the organization's intended outcomes. This also includes conducting readiness assessments, evaluating results, and presenting findings in a logical and easy-to-understand manner.