Finance Director Global Shared Services

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced and strategic finance leader to join John Crane as Head of Global Finance Shared Services. Reporting into senior finance leadership this role is responsible for leading and developing our global Finance Shared Services organisation across the UK India and Mexico ensuring the delivery of efficient scalable and high-quality finance services that support business performance and growth.

As the leader of our Shared Services organisation you will drive operational excellence across core finance processes including Accounts Payable Accounts Receivable General Ledger Cash Management and Payroll. You will play a critical role in shaping and executing the Shared Services strategy leading finance transformation initiatives driving process standardisation and automation and ensuring strong governance compliance and stakeholder satisfaction across the global business.

This is a highly visible leadership role requiring a collaborative and commercially minded individual who can influence at all levels lead geographically dispersed teams and deliver sustainable improvements across our finance operations.

Responsibilities 

Leadership & Strategy

• Lead the global Finance Shared Services organisation across the UK India and Mexico.
• Develop and execute the Shared Services strategy in alignment with wider finance and business objectives.
• Build and maintain a high-performing customer-focused culture that promotes accountability collaboration operational excellence and continuous improvement.
• Develop organisational capability through succession planning talent development and leadership coaching.
• Partner with Finance Leadership and regional stakeholders to drive service excellence and business value.

Shared Services Operations

• Provide leadership and oversight of Accounts Payable (AP) Accounts Receivable (AR) General Ledger (GL) Cash Management Payroll and related transactional finance activities.
• Ensure consistent delivery of services through standardised global processes policies and controls.
• Establish and monitor service level agreements (SLAs) key performance indicators (KPIs) and operational metrics.
• Oversee the timely and accurate completion of month-end quarter-end and year-end activities.
• Drive operational efficiency while maintaining strong financial controls and governance standards.

Finance Process Excellence & Transformation

• Lead the Finance Process Excellence team in identifying and implementing continuous improvement initiatives.
• Drive standardisation harmonisation and optimisation of finance processes across the global organisation.
• Champion automation digitisation and simplification initiatives through ERP systems analytics tools and emerging technologies.
• Lead finance transformation programmes transitions and process migration activities.
• Promote a culture of innovation and operational excellence across Shared Services functions.

Governance Controls & Compliance

• Establish and maintain a robust governance and control framework across Shared Services operations.
• Ensure compliance with company policies accounting standards regulatory requirements and audit expectations.
• Strengthen risk management practices and maintain effective financial controls across all processes.

Stakeholder Management

• Act as the primary interface between Shared Services Finance Leadership and key business stakeholders.
• Build strong relationships across the organisation to ensure alignment on priorities service expectations and outcomes.
• Regularly communicate operational performance transformation progress risks and improvement opportunities to senior leadership.
• Drive customer-focused service delivery and stakeholder satisfaction globally.

Payroll Leadership

• Provide strategic oversight of the UK Payroll function.
• Ensure accurate and timely payroll processing while maintaining compliance with all regulatory requirements.
• Drive payroll process improvements and strengthen operational controls and governance.

Qualifications :

You will be a proven finance operations leader with significant experience managing global shared services environments and leading large-scale transformation initiatives.

Essential Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelors degree in Finance Accounting Business or a related discipline or equivalent professional experience.
• Professional accounting qualification such as ACA ACCA CIMA CPA or equivalent.
• Significant leadership experience within a Global Finance Shared Services or Global Business Services environment.
• Proven experience leading multinational and geographically dispersed teams.
• Strong understanding of end-to-end finance processes including:
  • Accounts Payable (AP)
  • Accounts Receivable (AR)
  • General Ledger (GL)
  • Cash Management
  • Payroll
  • Record-to-Report (R2R)
• Demonstrated success delivering finance transformation process standardisation and continuous improvement programmes.
• Strong knowledge of governance compliance financial controls and risk management frameworks.
• Experience working with ERP systems preferably SAP.
• Strong project management analytical and stakeholder engagement skills.

Key Competencies

• Inspirational leadership with the ability to develop motivate and retain high-performing teams.
• Strategic mindset with the ability to translate business objectives into clear operational priorities and measurable outcomes.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills with the ability to build credibility across all levels of the organisation.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
• Proven ability to lead transformation automation and process improvement initiatives within complex global organisations.
• Sound judgement and decision-making capability balancing commercial operational compliance and customer requirements.
• High levels of integrity accountability and commitment to governance and ethical business practices.

Additional Information :

With colleagues stretching across the globe we are proud of our diversity. To foster inclusivity we run employee resource groups (ERGs) to provide a safe space for employees to connect and support each other. Our cross-business ERGs include Veterans Pride Network Black Employee Network Network and Neurodiversity. 

Across our company we recognize excellence culminating in the Smiths Excellence Awards our annual celebration of the most extraordinary activities people and projects that best showcase our strengths and help drive our business forward. We announce these on our annual Smiths Day a global celebration of Smiths around our network. 

Join us for a great career with competitive compensation and benefits while helping engineer a better future. 

We believe that different perspectives and backgrounds are what make a company flourish. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment regardless of color religion sex sexual orientation gender identity national origin economic status disability age or any other legally protected characteristics. We are proud to be an inclusive company with values grounded in equality and ethics where we celebrate support and embrace diversity.

At no time during the hiring process will Smiths Group nor any of our recruitment partners ever request payment to enable participation including but not limited to interviews or testing. Avoid fraudulent requests by applying jobs directly through our careers website (Careers - Smiths Group plc)

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time