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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Internal Controller

💰 $ - $

FinanceAccountingInternal Controls

🎯 Role Definition

The Internal Controller is a hands-on finance leader who owns the controllership function for a business unit or corporate entity. This role ensures accurate and timely financial close and statutory reporting, maintains a robust internal control framework (including SOX testing), partners with accounting, tax, treasury, FP&A and operational teams to deliver clean financials, and drives continuous improvement through process standardization and automation. The Internal Controller regularly interfaces with external auditors and regulators and presents key financial results and risk mitigations to senior management.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Accountant / Senior Financial Accountant
  • Financial Reporting Manager / Accounting Manager
  • Internal Audit Senior / SOX Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Finance Director / Controller (Group level)
  • Head of Controllership / VP Finance
  • Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for a business unit

Lateral Moves:

  • FP&A Manager / Head of Financial Planning & Analysis
  • Internal Audit Manager / Risk & Compliance Lead
  • Treasury or Tax Manager roles

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead and own the full month-end and quarter-end close process, including preparation and review of journal entries, account reconciliations, balance sheet analysis and timely delivery of financial statements in accordance with IFRS or US GAAP.
  • Manage the consolidation process for multiple legal entities, ensuring intercompany eliminations, minority interests, and foreign currency translations are accurately recorded and documented.
  • Design, document and maintain the internal control framework, including development of control matrices, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and policy updates to ensure compliance with corporate requirements and regulatory standards.
  • Drive SOX compliance activities end-to-end: maintain SOX universe, perform risk and control self-assessments, prepare and review testing workpapers, coordinate remediation plans and liaise with external SOX auditors.
  • Coordinate and manage external statutory and financial audits, including preparing audit schedules, answering auditor inquiries, leading walkthroughs, and ensuring timely resolution of audit findings.
  • Prepare and present monthly/quarterly financial packs and variance explanations to senior management, highlighting key drivers, risks, opportunities and recommended actions.
  • Lead monthly close review meetings with cross-functional stakeholders (FP&A, Tax, Treasury, Operations) to reconcile financial results, explain variances and align on forecasts and forecasts adjustments.
  • Oversee accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll accounting and fixed asset accounting processes to ensure accurate recording and segregation of duties across the accounting lifecycle.
  • Implement and maintain automated account reconciliation tools (e.g., BlackLine) and reconciliation best practices to improve accuracy and reduce close cycle time.
  • Develop, monitor and improve KPIs and dashboards (Power BI, Tableau, Excel) for controllership metrics such as days to close, number of reconciling items, SOX control pass rates and margin variances.
  • Perform detailed variance analysis and ad hoc financial modeling to support strategic decisions, capital allocation, cost reduction initiatives and operational performance improvements.
  • Lead intercompany accounting, invoicing, settlement processes and reconciliations to minimize stranded balances and ensure compliance with transfer pricing and internal billing policies.
  • Manage tax accounting and reporting coordination with corporate tax teams, including deferred tax calculations, tax provision support and responses to tax inquiries.
  • Oversee cash and working capital controls, including bank reconciliations, cash forecasting inputs and controls over banking, payment approvals and treasury interfaces.
  • Identify, design and execute process improvements and automation projects (RPA, scripting, ERP functionality) to enhance efficiency, reduce manual effort and mitigate control deficiencies.
  • Supervise, coach and develop a small team of accountants, ensuring effective workload allocation, career development plans and performance management.
  • Establish and maintain strong relationships with business partners and external stakeholders to provide financial guidance, ensure compliance and enable operational improvements.
  • Create and maintain audit-ready documentation for all financial processes and controls, ensuring continuity of knowledge and reducing single-point-of-failure risks.
  • Lead post-implementation controls and financial close support for ERP implementations, upgrades (SAP, Oracle, NetSuite) and accounting system integrations.
  • Conduct periodic risk assessments, identify segregation-of-duties conflicts, propose control changes and drive remediation to reduce financial and operational risk exposures.
  • Ensure accurate application of complex accounting standards (revenue recognition, leases, impairment, financial instruments) and partner with technical accounting resources for complex transactions.
  • Prepare consolidated financial statements and statutory filings required by local regulators and parent company, ensuring completeness, accuracy and timeliness.
  • Support budgeting and rolling forecast cycles by providing controllership inputs, historical insights, and reconciliations to bridge actuals to plan.
  • Manage ad hoc projects such as carve-outs, M&A integration accounting, divestitures or system harmonization from a controllership and internal controls perspective.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Financial reporting and statutory consolidation (IFRS and/or US GAAP) — demonstrated experience producing consolidated financial statements and disclosures.
  • Strong month-end close and balance sheet reconciliation expertise, including complex account analysis and journal entry preparation.
  • SOX compliance and internal control testing: creating control matrices, executing/overseeing testing and remediation.
  • ERP system proficiency (SAP FI/CO, Oracle Fusion, NetSuite) with experience supporting ERP implementations and month-end integrations.
  • Reconciliation and close automation tools such as BlackLine, Trintech or similar.
  • Advanced Excel modeling (pivot tables, Power Query, VBA/macros) and ability to prepare analytical reports and scenario financial models.
  • Data visualization and reporting tools (Power BI, Tableau) for KPIs and management dashboards.
  • Technical accounting knowledge for revenue recognition (IFRS 15/ASC 606), leases (IFRS 16/ASC 842), impairment, and tax accounting.
  • Intercompany accounting and transfer pricing settlement processes.
  • Audit coordination skills, preparing audit schedules and responding to external/internal auditor requests.
  • Strong understanding of treasury basics: bank reconciliations, cash controls and working capital metrics.
  • Experience with RPA, Power Automate or scripting (Python, SQL) to support process automation and data extraction.
  • Experience with budgeting, forecasting and variance analysis processes.

Soft Skills

  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to explain complex accounting issues to non-finance stakeholders and senior leaders.
  • Leadership and people management capabilities to coach, motivate and develop accounting teams.
  • High attention to detail and commitment to delivering accurate, audit-ready financial information.
  • Strong analytical and problem-solving mindset with an ability to drive root-cause analysis and corrective actions.
  • Project management skills: prioritize competing deadlines, manage cross-functional deliverables and lead implementations.
  • Stakeholder management and negotiation skills; ability to influence peers and senior management.
  • Adaptability and resilience in fast-paced or changing environments (ERP upgrades, reorganizations).
  • Ethical judgment and high integrity when handling confidential financial information.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Accounting/Finance, MBA or professional qualification such as CPA, ACCA, CA, CIMA.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Accounting
  • Finance
  • Business Administration
  • Economics
  • Information Systems (with accounting/finance emphasis)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 5 - 12 years of progressive accounting/controllership experience, including at least 3 years in a technical accounting or control owner role.

Preferred:

  • 7+ years of experience in controllership, financial reporting or internal audit within multinational companies.
  • Proven track record managing SOX compliance and external audits.
  • Experience with multi-entity consolidations, ERP systems (SAP/Oracle/NetSuite), and close automation tools.
  • Prior experience in a shared services, corporate finance, or fast-growth environment and exposure to M&A accounting is a plus.
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