Assistant Manager Finance Process Excellence

Job Description – Assistant Manager – Finance Process Excellence (M1)

Department: Finance & Governance

Location: Calicut, Kerala

Reporting To: Director / Finance Leadership

About the Role:

We are looking for an ownership-driven and strategically oriented Assistant Manager – Finance Process Excellence to lead and strengthen the organization's Finance function across Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Finance Operations, Controllership, Business Finance, Compliance, Governance, Automation, and Strategic Finance initiatives.

The role will act as a key Finance partner to leadership and business teams, providing financial insights, challenging assumptions, identifying risks and opportunities, and enabling data-driven decisions.

This is not a purely accounting or transactional Finance role. The successful candidate will be expected to balance strategic thinking with strong execution, independently lead key Finance priorities, establish scalable financial mechanisms, strengthen controls and governance, improve financial visibility, and support sustainable business growth.

Key Responsibilities

1. Strategic Financial Planning & Business Finance

• Lead annual budgeting, forecasting, and short- and long-range financial planning.
• Build financial models, scenario analyses, and business cases to evaluate investments, resource requirements, and strategic initiatives.
• Analyze revenue, costs, margins, profitability, productivity, utilization, and key business drivers.
• Identify financial risks, trends, and opportunities and recommend appropriate actions to leadership.
• Partner with leadership on resource allocation, investments, and business priorities.
• Provide an independent financial perspective and constructively challenge assumptions where required.

2. Financial Analysis, Reporting & Decision Support

• Own budget-versus-actual and forecast-versus-actual analysis and identify underlying business drivers.
• Move beyond reporting variances to determine root causes, business implications, and corrective actions.
• Conduct profitability, cost-benefit, trend, scenario, and sensitivity analyses.
• Develop KPIs, dashboards, and forward-looking indicators to improve financial visibility.
• Translate complex financial information into clear executive-level insights and actionable recommendations.
• Present financial performance, risks, opportunities, cash flow, and key priorities to senior leadership.

3. Finance Governance, Controllership & Operations

• Strengthen financial governance and controllership across the organization.
• Oversee accounting, book closure, payroll finance coordination, vendor payments, receivables, bank and balance-sheet reconciliations, intercompany accounting, and financial reporting.
• Ensure accurate and timely monthly, quarterly, and annual financial closure.
• Establish effective controls around budgets, expenses, revenue/cost recognition, payments, reconciliations, and financial approvals.
• Identify control gaps and financial risks and drive corrective actions through closure.
• Establish process documentation, SLAs, operating metrics, backup ownership, and appropriate segregation of duties.
• Continuously improve Finance accuracy, turnaround time, scalability, and operational discipline.

4. Cash Flow, Working Capital & Cost Management

• Own cash-flow monitoring, forecasting, and forward-looking liquidity planning.
• Monitor receivables, collections, vendor payments, and other working-capital components.
• Improve visibility into major cost drivers and identify measurable cost-optimization opportunities.
• Partner with business leaders to strengthen cost discipline and evaluate the financial value of expenditures and investments.
• Provide leadership with clear visibility into cash position, expected inflows/outflows, and financial risks.

5. Taxation, Audit & Statutory Compliance

• Ensure timely and accurate GST, TDS, SEZ, and other applicable statutory compliance.
• Coordinate statutory audits, tax audits, internal audits, and other financial reviews.
• Work with auditors, consultants, banks, authorities, and external agencies as required.
• Maintain strong audit readiness and ensure observations and corrective actions are tracked to closure.
• Proactively identify and escalate material compliance and financial-control risks.

6. Business Finance & Stakeholder Partnership

• Act as a Finance partner to Business Units, functional leaders, and senior leadership.
• Support budgeting, forecasting, profitability analysis, pricing/commercial evaluations, investments, and resource-allocation decisions.
• Review the financial implications of major business initiatives before commitments are made.
• Influence stakeholders through financial data, business understanding, and commercial judgment, including where there is no direct reporting relationship.
• Communicate financial risks, trade-offs, and recommendations clearly and objectively.
• Drive agreed stakeholder actions through implementation and measurable outcomes.

7. Finance Transformation, Automation & Analytics

• Lead Finance transformation, process standardization, automation, and analytics initiatives.
• Partner with Engineering, Product, and Internal Systems teams to improve Finance workflows, reconciliations, reporting, dashboards, controls, and data flows.
• Identify opportunities to use AI, automation, analytics, and business intelligence to reduce manual effort and improve accuracy and scalability.
• Define Finance requirements, validation rules, data requirements, and governance controls for financial systems.
• Establish measurable improvements in Finance productivity, turnaround time, and reporting quality.

8. Finance Team Leadership

• Lead and manage the Finance team across operational, analytical, and strategic responsibilities.
• Establish clear priorities, KRAs/KPIs, ownership, and performance expectations.
• Review team outputs and maintain high standards of accuracy, quality, and accountability.
• Coach and develop team members in financial capability, business understanding, analytical thinking, ownership, and problem-solving.
• Build backup ownership, cross-training, and succession plans to reduce dependency on individuals.
• Partner with HR and leadership on Finance hiring, onboarding, capability development, and performance management.

Preferred Candidate Profile Education

• CA / CMA / MBA Finance / M.Com or equivalent qualification.
• CA/CMA or a strong professional Finance qualification is preferred for candidates expected to lead the complete Finance function.

Experience

• 7–10 years of relevant Finance experience, preferably across FP&A, Corporate Finance, Controllership, Accounting, Finance Operations, Audit, Compliance, or Business Finance.
• Demonstrated experience independently owning significant Finance responsibilities and managing a Finance team.
• Strong exposure to budgeting, forecasting, financial modelling, management reporting, and business analysis.
• Experience partnering with senior leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Experience driving Finance transformation, automation, systems, or process-improvement initiatives.
• Experience in a technology, software, product, shared-services, or operationally complex organization is preferred.

Required Skills & Competencies

Financial & Technical

• FP&A, budgeting, forecasting, and long-range planning
• Financial modelling, scenario analysis, and profitability analysis
• Management reporting and executive financial communication
• Cash-flow and working-capital management
• Cost optimization and financial controls
• Accounting, audit, taxation, and statutory compliance
• ERP/Finance systems, Advanced Excel, BI, analytics, and automation

Leadership & Behavioral

• High ownership and accountability
• Strategic thinking with strong execution
• Strong commercial and financial judgment
• Ability to dive deep and identify root causes
• Structured, data-driven problem-solving
• Ability to operate independently and manage ambiguity
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills
• Ability to challenge assumptions constructively
• Bias for action and ability to drive issues through closure
• Strong communication, people leadership, and mentoring capability
• High standards and continuous-improvement mindset

What Success Looks Like

The successful candidate will:

• Establish Finance as a strategic business partner, not only an operational support function.
• Improve budgeting, forecasting, financial visibility, and leadership decision-making.
• Provide actionable insights on business performance, risks, opportunities, profitability, and investments.
• Strengthen financial governance, controllership, audit readiness, and statutory compliance.
• Improve cash-flow, working-capital, and cost management.
• Deliver accurate and timely Finance operations and reporting.
• Build scalable Finance processes and reduce dependency on individuals.
• Improve Finance productivity through automation, AI, analytics, and business intelligence.
• Build a capable, accountable, and high-performing Finance team.
• Successfully balance strategic Finance leadership with strong operational execution.