Financial Controller (CA(SA), Multi-Entity, Multi-Currency)

This is a finance function at the point where it stops being a job and starts being a structure. The group has grown across several entities and jurisdictions, and it now needs a Financial Controller who can put proper reporting, controls and forecasting underneath it — and then build the team that runs them.

You will work directly with the Group Head of Finance and the Managing Director. Expect to be hands-on with the detail yourself until that team is in place, and expect your work to reach the board, the auditors and the funders.

What you’ll do

• Manage the finance function across multiple entities and jurisdictions.
• Prepare and review the monthly financial reports that go to management and the board.
• Lead cash flow forecasting and budgeting across the group.
• Oversee intercompany transactions and multi-currency accounting.
• Maintain strong internal controls and accounting standards, and keep statutory and regulatory reporting on time in every jurisdiction the group operates in.
• Build a control environment — approval limits, segregation of duties, documented policies — that will hold up to audit and still work when the group is twice the size.
• Liaise with auditors, tax advisors, banks and other external partners.
• Turn financial data into insight the business can act on, and represent the finance function credibly with investors, lenders and other external stakeholders.
• Design the shape of the finance function — the operating model, the roles and the reporting lines — and hire into it as headcount is approved.
• Recruit, onboard and mentor the team, and shift progressively from doing the work yourself to reviewing, directing and developing others.
• Put in place the finance processes and systems that scale with the group rather than needing rebuilding at each stage — chart of accounts, month-end close calendar, reporting templates.

What you’ll need

• Chartered Accountant (SA).
• At least 5 years in financial management, ideally including building, structuring or leading a finance team.
• Proven experience managing multi-entity finances across more than one jurisdiction.
• Multi-currency accounting experience.
• Demonstrated ability in cash flow forecasting and budgeting.
• Sound knowledge of IFRS, taxation and compliance requirements.
• Accounting software — Xero, Sage or similar — and advanced Excel.
• Real people-leadership: you have hired, managed and developed a team, even if it has been a small one.

Nice to have

• Financial control or finance management inside a technology, engineering or infrastructure business.
• Familiarity with capital-intensive infrastructure build programmes, and the funding and margin dynamics that go with them.
• Complex intercompany or usage-based billing.
• Exposure to transfer pricing.
• Having stood up a finance function or team from scratch in a scale-up or high-growth business.

What’s on offer

• The chance to build and shape a finance function, and a team, from an early stage of the group’s growth.
• A direct reporting line to, and close partnership with, the Group Head of Finance and Managing Director.
• A dynamic, fast-moving environment where the finance function is treated as something to build rather than something to administer.

Johannesburg. In Office. Permanent.