Head of Finance Assurance & Controls

At Wise our mission is Money Without Borders - instant, convenient, transparent and eventually free.

As we continue to grow and scale, we're on the hunt for an experienced Finance leader to join our Finance tribe. Your work will be instrumental in strengthening our internal control environment, monitoring and reporting, and helping the business achieve its mission.

This role provides an excellent platform for someone looking to step into the finance function of a Fintech and deep dive into the inner workings of a Company that has taken the financial services industry by storm.

Your Mission:

• Build and execute the strategic roadmap for the Assurance, Risk and Controls function to improve the confidence and trust in our financial data and reporting.
• Lead 2 sub teams; Assurance, a team of analysts responsible for build and execution of operational controls to ensure accuracy of finance data and; Risk and Controls, a team of finance/controls professionals responsible for advisory, testing and status reporting of the overall finance control environment.
• You will identify the required resources, remove blockers and influence the broader finance teams to execute on the roadmap for the Assurance, Risk and Controls function.
• On a day to day basis, you will lead the teams through risk assessment, controls design, build and execution for financial data.
• Review and challenge the control outputs for daily and month-end controls as relevant and ensure adequate sign-off prior to financial month-end close.
• Effectively partner and challenge Finance and other business teams such as Engineering and Operations on remediation of high risk scenarios and gaps including process redesign and implementation of tactical as well as long term solutions.
• Partner with teams outside of finance to design and execute a longer term strategy on controls ownership and execution, including shifting controls from downstream finance teams to upstream business teams.
• Oversee the project to build end to end views of our control environment to illustrate key risks, controls and processes that impact financial reporting. Partner with finance product managers and engineers on technical solution design and strategic tooling.
• Oversee independent controls testing on an ad-hoc basis to identify gaps and influence control owners to implement remediation plans.
• Provide clarity and assurance to key stakeholders on the status of the Finance control environment. Stakeholders include the CFO, Internal Audit, Operational Risk Committee and the Audit & Risk Committee.
• Collaborate with key stakeholders, including 1st line, 2nd line and 3rd line of defence to establish standards, policies, and develop KRIs for measuring and monitoring risks and incidents on a continuous basis.
• Coach and mentor a highly skilled team of analysts and finance professionals and data analysts and support their ongoing development to fulfil their potential at Wise.
• Actively contribute to operational leads and other finance leadership initiatives to solve cross team/tribe challenges.

The role will give you the opportunity to:

• Own your own path to success - You'll have a high level of autonomy and responsibility.
• Develop an in-depth knowledge of Wise's business - Get to know many teams across finance and the business as you partner with them to help them implement a risk and controls culture.
• Grow with the role - You will have the opportunity to develop your leadership skills and grow your own team as the business and finance function grows in complexity.
• Stepping stone - This role provides an excellent platform for someone looking to step into the finance function of a fast growing Fintech.

A bit about you:

• Theory - You have a professional finance qualification such as the ACA or equivalent with proven post qualification experience. You will also hold practical knowledge of IFRS and general accounting principles.
• Practice - You have advanced and in-depth risks and controls experience working in a listed environment or large complex company and are able to apply this to Wise. You also have demonstrable experience in leading highly skilled teams on multiple assignments preferably within Financial services.
• Love getting things done - You are not afraid to roll up your sleeves and take responsibility to do whatever needs doing to solve problems.
• Commercial acumen - You understand the value of taking a balanced approach to risk and controls to support the growth of the business.
• Collaborative - You work well in a multinational team environment, and know how to have an impact through others.
• Development - You are keen to learn and develop your knowledge of how a FinTech and fast growing scale-up operates.

Our finance team is spread across the globe, but mainly in London and Tallinn, so there are a lot of video calls and some travel involved (potentially once a quarter).

We're people without borders - without judgement or prejudice, too. We want to work with the best people, no matter their background. So if you're passionate about learning new things and keen to join our mission, you'll fit right in.

Also, where and what you studied isn't important to us. If you've got great experience, the right skills for the role and you're great at articulating your thinking, we'd like to hear from you.

If you want to find out more about what it's like to work at Wise visit Wise.Jobs .

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