• Job Description

  Req#: R-179114

  Associate Director- R2R Controlling and Reporting

  Location: Luton, UK / Warsaw, Poland

  Competitive salary and benefits apply

  AstraZeneca is one of the world’s most exciting bio-pharmaceutical companies. From scientists to sales, lab techs to legal, we’re on a mission to turn ideas into life-changing medicines that improve patients’ lives and benefit society. We are active in over 100 countries and we employ over 80,000 people. We are an innovation-driven biopharmaceutical with over 60 years of experience. Working here means being entrepreneurial, thinking big and working together to make the impossible a reality.

  Global Finance Services (GFS) is AstraZeneca Finance’s financial services division covering Record to Report (including Controlling), Purchase to Pay, Contract to Cash, Performance and Management Reporting and Tax delivered from our in-house and BPO service centres located across the globe. GFS was established to support AstraZeneca’s Finance function on a transformation journey with the objective of delivering excellence in financial operations and insight through global simplification and standardization that enable our customers to focus on AZ’s strategic priorities. Record to Report’s (R2R) 2025 vision is to seamlessly deliver trusted financial reporting through scalable and sustainable R2R process excellence and there is a clear strategic roadmap in place to deliver the R2R vision. GFS R2R will play a key role in supporting the delivery of the R2R strategy, ensuring the transformation changes are effectively embedded within our processes and operating model.

  GFS R2R has two distinct operations- Middle Office and Back Office. The R2R Middle Office teams are aligned to the business areas and act as the single point of contact for their respective market or SET/busines area. The Middle Office are customer aligned, providing controllership support and undertaking judgemental activities. The Middle Offices are located in house in three strategic regional locations – Warsaw (EMEA), San Jose (Americas) and Kuala Lumpur (Asia). The Middle Office works closely with the Back Office to ensure the financial results are robust and are in line with the business expectations. The R2R Back office delivers the standard, repeatable, non judgemental transactional activities and is aligned to a process tower structure, ensuring process excellence is delivered whilst driving productivity through process efficiency and automation. The Back Office is delivered via a BPO outsource provider and through an in house shared service centre.

  We are currently searching for candidates in the GFS Record to Report process tower.

  This role will sit within the GFS Record to Report (R2R) team. This team drives the global process delivery and oversight for the R2R process tower, translating the R2R strategy into clear operational deliverables within GFS R2R. The team drives the R2R global performance and service management, ensuring consistency across the service centres, as well as supporting the global transformation agenda. The role holder will report to the R2R Global Process Delivery Director (GPDD) and will work closely with the Global Process Owner (GPO), R2R Regional Leads and Site Heads to support the delivery of the R2R strategy across GFS. This role will focus upon the controllership and reporting services offered through the regional GFS Middle Offices and you will be a key player in driving the GFS R2R vision whereby the Middle Office will be the single R2R point of contact for the business, providing a globally consistent R2R service whilst specialising upon value adding, judgemental activities. Through utilising analytics, insights and leveraging the technology investments you will be a key player in driving the standardisation agenda R2R whilst ensuring effective performance management and governance is in place. You will use your deep insight into the R2R processes to provide process expertise into global change initiatives and to identify, co-ordinate and deliver the continuous improvement agenda in order to drive process improvements and productivity across the service centres as well as the evolution of the operating model following the standardisation drive.

  Duties and Responsibilities

  • Supporting the delivery of global processes by working through a matrix model with members of the various sites, setting deliverables and outcomes to ensure global consistency within the process tower.

  • Accountable for delivering global consistency and standardisation across the controllership processes and reporting across R2R.

  • Providing process expertise within the scope of the controllership and reporting to drive the standardisation agenda, ensuring standardisation initiatives are in line with the R2R strategic roadmap.

  • Support the R2R global service and performance management processes utilising a robust governance model to provide a joined up and holistic view of R2R performance and effectively managing the GFS R2R service catalogue

  • Accountable for driving consistency in the activities and processes undertaken across the middle office sites.

  • Accountable for identifying and delivering standardisation across the Middle Office processes with the aim of driving process efficiency and ultimately transitioning fully standardised, repeatable processes to the back office.

  • Accountable for implementing standard, robust reports which provide insights into financial performance support key stakeholders within embedded finance.

  • Working in collaboration with the R2R Regional Service Leads to deliver a consistent R2R customer service model and governance to key external stakeholders.

  • Accountable for adherence to global standards, process and policies across the Middle Office sites.

  • Act as a subject matter expert, providing process expertise within the scope of the GFS service as well as utilising the relevant insights to input into strategic change initiatives.

  • Utilise process and technical finance knowledge to provide efficient and effective resolution to operational challenges and process deviations.

  • Ensuring that changes to processes from transformation activities are embedded into the service centres as well as identifying and acting upon further continuous improvement and productivity initiatives.

  • Line management including setting objectives, development and coaching.

  Essential skills and experience

  • Qualified finance professional with strong project management skills

  • Solid understanding of finance and accounting principles including experience of accounting for complex transactions.

  • 5 years+ Record to Report/Controlling experience in a large/global organization.

  • Cross boundary experience including building relationships remotely and cross-culturally

  • Ability to work well in and across diverse global teams whilst demonstrating ability to influence

  • Demonstrable ability to lead and motivate teams through periods of high change Experience in working in a matrix organisation

  • Capacity to solve problems across a number of systems and processes, identify options and propose/implement a reasoned solution.

  • Experience of implementing significant business change across different national and business boundaries

  • Track record of driving simplification & continuous improvement across key business processes

  • Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the confidence to express clear opinions to senior stakeholders.

  • Ability to remain objective & independent whilst under pressure

  • Strong analytical skills with a high attention to detail

  Desirable skills and experience

  • Experience of working in Pharmaceutical industry

  Why AstraZeneca?

  At AstraZeneca, we ‘re dedicated to being a Great Place to Work. Where you are empowered to push the boundaries of science and fuel your entrepreneurial spirit. There’s no better place to make a difference to medicine, patients and society. An inclusive culture that champions diversity and collaboration, and always committed to lifelong learning, growth and development. We’re on an exciting journey to pioneer the future of healthcare.

  So, what’s next?

  Are you already imagining yourself joining our team? Good, because we can’t wait to hear from you! Are you ready to bring new insights and fresh thinking to the table? Brilliant! We have one seat available, and we hope it’s yours

  Where can I find out more? Our Social Media:

  Follow AstraZeneca on LinkedIn - LinkedIn

  Follow AstraZeneca on Facebook - Facebook

  Follow AstraZeneca on Instagram - Instagram

  Date Posted

  06-Sept-2023

  Closing Date

  17-Sept-2023

  AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics. We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.

• About the company

  AstraZeneca PLC is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company with its global headquarters in Cambridge, England.

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