About the position
We are seeking a highly experienced Finance Transformation professional to lead the design of a future-state Finance Data Model and Chart of Accounts as part of a major Finance Transformation programme.
The successful candidate will define the organisation’s future Chart of Accounts, reporting dimensions, financial hierarchies, master-data standards, governance frameworks and supporting finance data structures.
These structures must enable effective:
- Statutory and regulatory reporting
- Management and performance reporting
- Planning, budgeting and forecasting
- Group consolidation and reporting
- Finance process standardisation
- ERP and EPM implementation
- Data governance and financial control
- Future finance operating models
This role requires someone who combines deep finance and accounting expertise with proven finance-transformation delivery experience.
The successful candidate must be able to work across Finance, Tax, Actuarial, Technology, Data, Risk and business teams, translating complex requirements into scalable and implementable finance structures.
This is a high-impact position requiring both strategic leadership and hands-on design capability.
Key Responsibilities
Finance Data Model Design
- Lead the design of the future-state Finance Data Model.
- Define the Chart of Accounts, reporting dimensions, hierarchies and consolidation structures.
- Design legal-entity, cost-centre, profit-centre, organisational and business-unit structures.
- Define appropriate product, channel and management-reporting dimensions.
- Establish finance master-data principles and standards.
- Ensure the model supports statutory, regulatory, management and operational reporting.
- Develop design principles that ensure consistency, scalability, governance and sustainability.
- Ensure that the future-state design supports business growth, transformation and future technology initiatives.
Chart of Accounts Redesign
- Lead the review and redesign of the organisation’s Chart of Accounts.
- Assess the existing Chart of Accounts and identify opportunities to simplify and standardise its structure.
- Ensure that the future design supports financial reporting, regulatory reporting, consolidation, performance management, planning and forecasting.
- Define account structures, segments, hierarchies, attributes and roll-up rules.
- Ensure the design supports data analytics and business-intelligence requirements.
- Develop a mapping strategy from current-state accounts and structures to the future-state design.
- Assess the impact of the proposed design on reporting, processes, systems, controls and users.
Finance Transformation and Operating Model Alignment
- Align the Finance Data Model with the broader Finance Target Operating Model.
- Support the design of future-state finance processes and organisational structures.
- Ensure alignment across Record-to-Report, Group Reporting, Planning and Forecasting, Performance Management and Finance Data Governance.
- Support the development of Shared Services, Centres of Excellence and finance ownership models.
- Identify opportunities to simplify and standardise finance processes through improved data design.
Business Analysis and Requirements Management
- Facilitate workshops with senior stakeholders to gather, analyse and validate requirements.
- Lead requirements analysis across Finance, Tax, Actuarial, Technology, Data and business teams.
- Translate reporting, accounting and operational requirements into practical finance-data structures.
- Produce comprehensive business requirements and design specifications.
- Develop data dictionaries, process maps, impact assessments and design-authority documentation.
- Maintain traceability between business requirements, design decisions and implementation outcomes.
- Document key decisions, assumptions, dependencies and unresolved matters.
Finance Data Governance
- Design an appropriate Finance Data Governance framework.
- Define data ownership, accountability and stewardship responsibilities.
- Establish approval workflows and governance forums.
- Define finance master-data maintenance procedures.
- Develop data-quality standards and control frameworks.
- Establish governance mechanisms for future changes to accounts, dimensions, hierarchies and master data.
- Ensure that the future model can be governed and maintained after implementation.
Stakeholder Engagement and Facilitation
- Partner with senior stakeholders across Finance, Tax, Actuarial, Technology, Risk, Compliance and Operations.
- Facilitate design workshops, working sessions and decision-making forums.
- Challenge existing structures and approaches where appropriate.
- Guide stakeholders toward practical, scalable and best-practice solutions.
- Present recommendations and design decisions to Executive Sponsors, Steering Committees and programme governance forums.
- Build agreement across stakeholder groups with differing reporting and operational requirements.
- Act as a trusted advisor on finance transformation, data design and reporting architecture.
Transformation Delivery Support
- Support implementation planning and delivery activities.
- Identify design risks, dependencies, impacts and implementation considerations.
- Validate that proposed technology solutions support the approved finance design.
- Define transition and implementation roadmaps.
- Support the development of the finance data-migration strategy.
- Establish requirements for migrating finance master data and historical reporting structures.
- Support testing, training, change management and business-readiness activities.
- Provide subject-matter expertise throughout the transformation lifecycle.
- Ensure that all proposed designs are practical, controlled and implementable.
Key Deliverables
The successful candidate will be responsible for delivering:
- A comprehensive future-state Finance Data Model blueprint
- A detailed future-state Chart of Accounts
- Reporting dimensions, attributes, hierarchies and roll-up structures
- Finance data-design principles and standards
- A Finance Data Governance and ownership framework
- A finance master-data control and maintenance model
- A current-to-future Chart of Accounts mapping strategy
- Data-migration requirements and design principles
- Reporting, process, system and control impact assessments
- A stakeholder decision and design register
- A future-state reporting architecture
- An implementation and transition roadmap
Required Experience
- Extensive experience in Finance Transformation, Finance Architecture, Finance Systems, Financial Reporting, Financial Control or a related discipline.
- Proven experience leading enterprise Chart of Accounts redesign initiatives within large and complex organisations.
- Strong experience designing finance data models that support multiple legal entities, business units, products and reporting requirements.
- Experience defining reporting dimensions, hierarchies, attributes and roll-up structures.
- Strong exposure to ERP, EPM, financial consolidation or enterprise-transformation programmes.
- Experience aligning finance-data structures with Finance Target Operating Models and process-transformation initiatives.
- Demonstrated experience developing current-to-future mapping and data-migration strategies.
- Strong understanding of statutory, regulatory, management and group-reporting requirements.
- Proven experience facilitating workshops with senior and executive stakeholders.
- Experience driving complex design decisions across multiple stakeholder groups.
- Demonstrated ability to translate business and reporting requirements into scalable design solutions.
- Strong programme-delivery experience within complex transformation environments.
- Experience producing detailed design documentation and implementation roadmaps.
Qualifications
- Relevant degree in Finance, Accounting, Commerce or a related field.
- A recognised professional finance qualification such as CA(SA), CIMA, ACCA, CPA or equivalent is preferred.
- Finance Transformation, ERP, EPM, data-management or process-related qualifications would be advantageous.
Technical Knowledge
The ideal candidate should demonstrate strong expertise across several of the following areas:
- Chart of Accounts design
- Finance data architecture
- Finance master-data management
- Financial accounting and control
- Financial and management reporting
- Statutory and regulatory reporting
- Group consolidation
- Finance Target Operating Models
- Data governance and data quality
- Planning, budgeting and forecasting
- Performance management
- Record-to-Report and financial close processes
- ERP and EPM solution design
- Reporting dimensions and hierarchies
- Finance data migration
- Business intelligence and enterprise reporting
Preferred Industry Experience
Experience within one or more of the following sectors would be advantageous:
- Insurance
- Financial services
- Banking
- Wealth and asset management
- Other large or highly regulated industries
Preferred Technology Exposure
Exposure to one or more of the following platforms would be advantageous:
- Oracle EPM
- OneStream
- Workday
- Anaplan
- Hyperion
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Microsoft Great Plains
- Workiva
- Power BI
- Enterprise reporting and consolidation platforms
Desired Skills:
