Financial Controller

Job Description

Independent Food Company is home to some of the region’s most recognised hospitality concepts, including SALT, Somewhere, Parker’s, Shalwa, Somewhere, and Public. We are a fast-growing organisation with an expanding portfolio of concepts, an active acquisition strategy, and ambitious plans for growth across new and existing markets.

ROLE PURPOSE

Lead the Finance Center of Excellence (CoE) for back-end accounting across the group. Own the integrity, control, and compliance of all financial reporting — and build the standardised platform that allows the CoE to scale across brands and geographies. The role is the foundation of the group’s finance transformation; the first 12 months are about clearing the past, hardening controls, and embedding the operating model.

SCOPE OF FUNCTION (PHASE 1)

• General Accounting — month-end close, journal entries, balance-sheet reconciliations, entity-level financials across all current entities
• AR & Revenue Accounting — revenue recognition, AR ageing, customer & aggregator reconciliation, cash recon
• Tax & Compliance — UAE VAT and Corporate Tax, UK tax (Public entity), Transfer Pricing documentation, regulatory filings
• Treasury & Master Data — bank account governance, banking relationships, chart of accounts, vendor & customer master data, project / WBS structure
• Project Accounting absorbed into GA — projects become a coding dimension, not a function
• Phase 2 (~6–9 months in): Accounts Payable merges into the function, expanding scope to ~12 direct or matrixed reports

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Build the CoE on five pillars: (1) single chart of accounts and master data; (2) standard close calendar and ledger discipline; (3) documented controls and maker-checker everywhere; (4) technology that does the work, not the people; (5) service-level agreements with the brands.
• Own month-end close: Sign off financial statements per entity, ensure a 5-working-day close cycle, lead the close calendar across all functions.
• Embed segregation of duties and maker-checker: Implement maker-checker on journals, balance-sheet recons, vendor master, bank-detail changes, and payment release.
• Lead prior-year cleanup: Supervise external secondment team (3–6 months) clearing historical audit findings, restating positions where required, building the BSR pack going forward.
• Tax & compliance ownership: Direct oversight of UAE VAT/CT, UK CT/VAT, transfer pricing, ESR, AML/KYC for vendors, UBO registration.
• Master data governance: Establish single source of truth for COA, vendor master, customer master, cost centres, projects/WBS. No brand creates GL codes or vendors without CoE sign-off.
• Build & maintain policy and SOP library: Ensure every transaction class has a documented policy and SOP, version-controlled, periodically reviewed.
• External audit relationship: Primary contact for external auditors, manage audit timeline, address management letter points, drive control-environment improvements.
• Develop the team: Coach Sr Accountants, fill critical vacancies, build a succession bench, partner with HR on capability building.
• Partner with brands and FP&A: Publish SLAs to brands; provide clean, timely actuals to FP&A; support business cases and investment reviews with reliable data.
• Scale the platform: Year 2 deliverable — make the CoE replicable for a new geography or brand addition without redesigning the model.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Qualified accountant — CA, ACCA, CPA, or equivalent (mandatory)
• 10–15 years progressive finance experience, including 4+ years as Financial Controller, Head of Finance, or CoE leadership
• Multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction exposure — UAE + UK essential;
• F&B, hospitality, or multi-outlet retail background strongly preferred
• Demonstrated experience building or transforming a finance function from fragmented to controlled
• Strong NetSuite (or equivalent ERP) expertise; experience integrating ERP with operational systems

Excellent communicator able to partner with operations and senior leadership