Assistant Director - Business Finance - Big4 - CA

About the Role:

Being a Senior Finance Manager, entails overseeing FP&A and Investor Relations for FT. The candidate is expected to support in the growth of key business streams and work cohesively to drive sustainable growth. In addition, the candidate is also expected to drive strategic projects which will directly contribute to the company's growth and success, cutting across business functions.

Key responsibilities:

Financial Planning, Forecasting & Analysis

- Jointly lead the preparation of annual budgets, rolling forecasts, and variance analysis.

- Review actual vs. budgeted expenses and revenue; provide timely insights to management.

- Support financial planning activities and help identify areas for cost optimization.

- Finance business partnering for various businesses streams of FT.

- Update financial models promptly to reflect the latest actuals and projections, supporting timely and informed decision-making.

- Support management with ad hoc financial analysis, scenario modeling, and business cases as needed for decision-making.

Investor Relations:

- Compile, validate, and distribute monthly MIS reports-including P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow summaries-within two business days of month-end close to align with management review cycles.

- Ensure accuracy and completeness of data inputs to avoid delays and ensure reliability of reports as this needs to be shared with the Board of Directors and Investors. Month-End Closures

- Coordinate with the accounting team to ensure timely completion of accruals, reconciliations, and journal entries as per the monthly close calendar.

- Validate that all closing activities are completed and financials are review-ready within the prescribed closing window.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

- Partner with sales, product and tech teams to gather inputs and validate assumptions early in the planning cycle to prevent last-minute delays.

- Facilitate planning meetings and checkpoints to ensure all stakeholders meet agreed timelines.

Process Improvement & Automation:

- Identify opportunities for process improvement (e.g., centralized templates, automation of data pulls, streamlined workflows) to reduce turnaround time.

- Monitor close cycle KPIs to drive ongoing improvements in efficiency and reporting timelines.

Ad Hoc Analysis & Special Projects:

- Support management with ad hoc analysis, ensuring a quick turnaround without compromising on quality.

- Contribute to strategic initiatives (e.g., business cases, scenario planning) with well-defined deliverables, schedules, and milestone tracking.

Preferred qualifications:

- Chartered Accountant with a minimum of 6 years of post-qualification experience.

- At-least 4-5 years of post-qualification FP&A experience within traditional companies (such as Reliance, HUL, Vedanta, Birla etc) or at least 3-4 years of post-qualification FP&A experience within Start-up tech / internet / new age companies (such as Swiggy, Zomato, Uber, Meesho etc)

- Upto 2 years of Investor Relations would be an added advantage, not mandatory.

- Article-ship in Statutory Audit function from Big 4 firms or Tier 2 firms (GT/ BDO/ Lodha equivalent only). Not open to candidates who have done article-ship in Direct Taxation.

- Open to considering candidates who have done article-ship in Indirect Taxation (GST only), provided they have 2-3 years of statutory audit experience (article-ship + post qualification) as well.

- Excellent MS Excel skills and working knowledge of accounting tools (Zoho/QuickBooks/Tally).

- If the candidate does not have excellent excel skills, then the candidate will not succeed in this role.

- Excellent academics (i) Class X and XII = 90%+ (ii) CA in not more than 2 attempts; Rankholders and first-attempt preferred.

- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

- High attention to detail as the individual is expected to work on critical investor/ board queries with a sense of ownership.

- Good verbal and written communication skills.

- High on energy and should demonstrate curiosity to learn.

- Ability to work independently and handle multiple tasks under tight timelines.