Assistant Manager – Finance Process Excellence (M1)

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 .