Head of Accounts

Key Responsibilities:

Predictable, High-Quality Financial Reporting for India Branded business:

• Prepare financial statements that are accurate, timely, audit-ready, and decision-useful, ensuring accuracy, completeness, and adherence to deadlines.
• Oversee the accounting department to ensure accurate and timely financial reporting.
• Single source of truth for group consolidation, MIS, statutory reporting, and RPT disclosures.
• Zero-surprise audits with clean opinions and minimal audit adjustments.
• Stable accounting policies, strong close discipline, and reliable SAP-led financial data.
• Ensure compliance with accounting standards, regulatory requirements, and internal policies.
• Management and Board reporting that explains performance, not just reports numbers.
• Provide detailed financial reports and presentations for internal and external stakeholders, including the board of directors.

Strong Financial Control & Governance Environment:

• Robust Internal Financial Controls (IFC) embedded into daily operations, not layered on.
• Clearly documented and enforced process maps, SOPs, control frameworks, and approval matrices.
• Early identification and closure of control gaps and process risks.
• Enterprise-wide risk awareness and accountability through an effective ERM framework.
• Ensure effective budgetary controls are in place

Disciplined Cash, Treasury & Balance Sheet Management:

• Sustained liquidity resilience with optimal cash deployment.
• Proactive funding strategy aligned to growth, risk, and cost of capital.
• Managed forex exposure and hedging effectiveness with no speculative risk.
• Full regulatory compliance on banking, and treasury reporting.
• Optimized insurance coverage protecting enterprise value.

Embedded Cost Consciousness & Capital Discipline

• Costs managed through design and governance, not post-facto controls.
• Clear ownership of opex, capex, and savings programs across the organisation.
• Transparent product costing, COGS control, and margin protection.
• Working capital actively managed with inventory, receivables, and payables discipline.
• Capex decisions evaluated on returns and post-investment performance.

Reliable, Scalable Finance Operations:

• Transactional finance that is efficient, compliant, and invisible to the business.
• Clean execution across O2C, P2P, L2D, payroll interfaces, reimbursements, and incentives.
• Strong control over sales, marketing, and doctor-related payments with zero compliance risk.
• Stable SAP and master data environment enabling scale without chaos.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM):

• Integrate financial metrics with customer data to enhance business insights and strategies.
• Collaborate with the CRM team to develop customer-centric financial strategies aimed at improving profitability and customer satisfaction

Costing and Profitability Analysis:

• Implement and manage effective costing methodologies to ensure accurate product costing and profitability analysis.
• Monitor and control operational costs, identifying opportunities for cost savings and efficiency improvements.
• Conduct regular reviews of product and project costs, providing insights and recommendations for cost management.

Internal Audits and Controls:

• Oversee the internal audit function to ensure the effectiveness of internal controls and risk management processes.
• Develop and implement audit plans, ensuring thorough and timely audits across all financial operations.
• Identify areas for process improvement and ensure the implementation of audit recommendations

MIS:

Develop and maintain a robust Sales MIS framework to ensure accurate and timely sales data reporting, analytics, and end-to-end incentive calculation and disbursement.

Sales Force Administration Expense Management:

• Provide strategic oversight of the Sales Expense Management framework, ensuring robust governance, compliance, and policy adherence across the sales organization.
• Drive end-to-end control over expense processes, including entitlement design, system configuration, approval workflows, and audit readiness.
• Ensure timely and accurate processing of field force expenses, coordinating with Sales, HR, and Finance teams for seamless reimbursements.
• Oversee master data integrityterritories, hierarchies, limits, and approval matricesto maintain accuracy and prevent leakages.

Qualification, Experience and Skill Sets:

• A qualified Chartered Accountant (CA) with a strong background in the pharmaceutical industry, demonstrating exceptional leadership and strategic acumen.
• Minimum 15 years of post-qualification experience in finance and accounts, with significant experience in the pharmaceutical industry.
• In-depth knowledge of financial planning, accounting principles, costing methodologies, financial reporting, and compliance requirements.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to present complex financial information clearly and effectively.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a focus on data-driven decision-making.
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to build and maintain effective relationships with various stakeholders, including investors, auditors, and regulatory bodies.
• Thorough understanding of regulatory requirements and compliance in the pharmaceutical industry.