Finance Controller

About Ogilvy

Ogilvy was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy. David created a culture that deeply respects and cares about its people and clients. Our mission is to inspire people and brands to make an impact and we are committed to attracting growing and retaining the best talent in the industry.

About the Role

Accountable for the execution of financial reporting accounting and controls across. Ensures integrity accuracy and compliance of financial outputs while supporting effective decision-making and maintaining strong as the primary in-market controllership lead and key interface with Regional Controllership and GBS Finance.

What Youll Do

Reporting Governance & Compliance:

• Deliver accurate and timely monthly quarterly and annual financial reporting for statutory compliance and group reporting
• Ensure compliance with IFRS group policies and statutory requirements including implementation of key accounting judgements and estimated in market
• Maintain robust balance sheet integrity reconciliations and substantiation
• Ensure audit readiness and management of external audit processes for market
• Execute SOX controls testing and remediation activities

Stewardship & Stakeholder Engagement:

• Partner with Market CFO to support performance analysis and decision-making through providing key inputs on financial actuals
• Provide clear commentary and variance analysis for financial actuals
• Input through financial actuals into budgeting forecasting and planning processes
• Maintain relationships with regulators auditors and external stakeholders
• Act as escalation point for accounting reporting and other compliance issues working with key functions (e.g. tax legal) to resolve
• Where other activities are retained in market assume oversight and sign off responsibilities for local tax and treasury activities ensuring adherence to WPP policies statutory and regulatory requirements and associated control requirements.

Operational Excellence:

• Oversee delivery of Record-to-Report transactional Finance and Controllership through GBS across market scope i.e. all countries and legal entities
• Monitor GBS service quality against SLAs and drive issue resolution
• Ensure implementation of global standards policies and frameworks
• Drive improvements in close cycle efficiency and reporting quality
• Support automation standardisation and process optimisation initiatives

What Youll Need

• 10 years of strong financial controllership experience including time spent in Financial Controller role
• Qualified accountant with experience in complex external audit environment and IFRS accounting complexity
• Experience operating in a complex multi-entity multi-country controls environment (US SOX)
• Experience working directly with a Finance global business services function to deliver Record to Report Transactional Finance and Controllership and Reporting requirements
• Experience managing local statutory reporting and group reporting consolidation reporting requirements
• Experience in a multi-ledger ERP and systems environment
• Strong senior C-suite level stakeholder management skills
• Strong organisation and interpersonal skills
• Experience working in a Media & Creative or similar nature business (e.g. understanding the nuances of complex media revenue recognition)
• Experience being involved in a successful finance transformation programme is highly desirable
• User-level knowledge of Finance systems and processes (e.g. insert ERP SAP BFC)

How Well Support You

Ogilvy celebrates its people. Fully. Enthusiastically. Unhesitatingly. Well empower you with the tools youll need to succeed. Well give you the autonomy to seek out new paths and better ways of doing things. Well support you with colleagues who are experts in their disciplines drawn from across the Ogilvy network. And well provide opportunities for you to do work of which youll be proud with people youll be proud to call your teammates.