Group Financial Controller - Specialist Financial Services Firm - Surrey with hybrid working - Competitive Salary Bonus Full Benefits - #2110865

Our client is a highly successful wealth management firm with a positive working culture that is friendly, collaborative and professional. The company has been going through an exciting period of growth with a good track record of staff retention and career development. The role is based in their office in Surrey and the firm operates a hybrid working model of 2 days in the office a week. The Group Financial Controller leads the Group’s financial control, close, statutory reporting, audit preparation and finance operations capability. The role owns the integrity of the financial records, the balance sheet control framework, month-end and year-end close discipline, technical accounting judgements, financial controls, process ownership and has direct line management of the Finance Manager and transaction processing Finance team.

The role provides accurate, controlled financial information to support decision-making and works closely with colleagues across the Finance Leadership Team and the wider business. While the role has a strong financial-control orientation, the successful candidate will be expected to operate collaboratively and flexibly, supporting finance improvement initiatives and wider business or strategic projects as required.

Profile Criteria:

1. Fully-Qualified accountant (ideally ACA, but ACCA / CIMA considered) with experience within the financial services industry being advantageous
2. A minimum of 5 years’ experience (the more the better) in a financial controller (or similar) role
3. A minimum of 3 years of team management experience (the more the better)
4. Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills
5. Confident user of Excel

Key duties and responsibilities

1. Lead the month-end and year-end close timetable, ensuring deadlines are clear, dependencies are managed and outputs are completed to a high standard.
2. Ensure ledgers, journals, accruals, prepayments, cut-off and key close judgements are complete, accurate and appropriately reviewed.
3. Own the balance sheet control framework, ensuring key reconciliations are prepared, reviewed, evidenced and cleared on a timely basis.
4. Maintain strong financial controls across the Finance function and wider business, including process documentation, review evidence and action tracking.
5. Provide accurate, reliable and well-controlled financial information to support reporting, planning and business decision-making.
6. Lead year-end close, statutory accounts preparation support, audit preparation and delivery of audit-ready schedules and working papers.
7. Coordinate audit deliverables, evidence requests and query resolution, escalating material issues or judgmental areas in a timely manner.
8. Lead the preparation, review and submission of relevant finance deliverables, including accounts packs, VAT returns, regulatory finance returns and other recurring finance outputs.
9. Support the financial control and validation of adviser payment, member pay, commission or similar finance processes, ensuring calculations and outputs are robustly evidenced.
10. Collaborate with colleagues responsible for management reporting, planning, forecasting and commercial analysis to ensure reporting outputs are based on accurate financial records.
11. Support finance improvement initiatives, including process redesign, systems implementation, reporting improvements, automation opportunities and stronger documentation of recurring activities.
12. Support wider business and strategic projects as required, bringing financial control, technical accounting and process discipline to project delivery.
13. Work constructively with colleagues across Finance and the wider business, recognizing that the Finance function must operate as one team and provide support across role boundaries when priorities require it.
14. Manage and support the development of the Finance Operations team, setting clear expectations around ownership, quality, review standards, timetables and escalation.