Vice President Financial Reporting

Job Summary
A senior leadership role to lead the Financial Reporting Operations delivery team for State Street Ireland, based in Kilkenny. As Head of Financial Reporting, you will be responsible for the overall management and delivery of financial reporting delivery to State Street Fund Services (Ireland) Limited's contracted client base. Such delivery broadly includes production, review and delivery of relevant statutory financial statements, management and oversight of the annual external audit for all contracted legal entities and completion of any regulatory reporting as completed within the Financial Reporting team.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the operational delivery for Financial Reporting operations, deliver a comprehensive and best in class service to clients and relevant stakeholders including client Boards, Auditors, translators.
• Lead the management, governance and oversight of any outsourced service delivery provider in accordance with State Street outsourcing framework and in accordance with local statutory requirements.
• Oversee Financial Reporting delivery against a backdrop of internal and external audit control and compliance, risk management, fiduciary control, procedural documentation and business continuity.
• Lead the ongoing development of financial reporting service offering, working closely with EMEA and global Financial Reporting functional leadership teams to deliver a product and service that is always best in class and aligned with global operating model, where appropriate.
• Lead and drive technical financial reporting knowledge and expertise across the team, provide sound opinion and expertise to the team, clients, audit firms and other parties, as required.
• Ensure all staff received appropriate and ongoing training specific to their role and complete all necessary State Street required training as required.
• Lead, develop & maintain strong external relationships with clients and audit firms.
• Be a strong and active participant at relevant industry level working groups and network groupings.
• Ensure that all procedures, systems and controls are regularly reviewed and in line with the overall risk profile for financial and regulatory reporting and the broader risk profile of State Street.
• Represent Financial Reporting when it comes to engaging with potential new clients, document our best in class service offering through any requested RFPs, present Financial Reporting in a professional, competent and confident manner.

• Continuously steer transformational change in the financial reporting department, encourage new ways of making department more efficient through use of automation and process review and change.

• Ensure sound that procedures, policies, controls and processes are adhered to so that a best in class service is delivered. Propose and/or implement procedural changes to improve performance of the department.
• Ensure all internal policies are complied with by the financial reporting teams in Ireland and demonstrate the 'Risk Excellence' culture in your behavior. Establish and nurture a culture of 'Risk Excellence' within the team, encourage an environment of openness that welcomes effective challenge and supports open discussion.
• Develop a culture of continuous learning and development across the team, ensure delivery of ongoing staff training and development and career opportunity.
• Ensure that the business unit operates in compliance with internal and external regulations and that escalation procedures are followed.

Managerial responsibilities

• Management of a large team of people across Financial Reporting.
• Develop effective working relationships and communication with staff and ensure that staff are motivated, developed and supported.
• Ensure the team has clear understanding of individual reporting lines, authority levels, scope of responsibilities (including those delegated to them and those they delegate), objectives, and training and competency requirements.
• Maintain a detailed understanding of the scope of the role's managerial responsibilities, and the competence of the staff reporting to you.
• Demonstrate proven 'Risk Excellence' culture in terms of behaviour, mindset and application.
• Establish and monitor an effective delegation framework to ensure that tasks are performed by staff members with appropriate capacity and authority level (based on knowledge, skills and competence).
• Establish and monitor an effective oversight framework to ensure that issues are appropriately identified, escalated and resolved. This includes: a) ensuring that appropriate management information is received, considered and challenged as appropriate at intervals proportionate to the risks; and b) that staff members have clear understanding of the escalation path/principles they need to follow.
• Possess a strong ability to network at all levels externally across the industry for the ongoing development and profile of financial reporting.
• Ensure that you make reasonable decisions by exercising reasonable care when considering information available to you. This includes taking proactive action to ensure that the information you have is suitable and adequate.
• Establish and nurture a culture of individual ownership of tasks to embed a clear individual sense of accountability into staff members' behaviour in performing their roles.
• Ensure the highest level of the Code of Conduct is displayed in own and staff behaviour.

THE PERSON
Qualifications & experience

• A seasoned senior manager with relevant financial reporting or audit experience. Ideally a qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CPA) having 12+ year's experience in a similar financial reporting or financial audit environment.
• Possess a good understanding of the technical and regulatory requirements of financial statement reporting including the application of core accounting standards to fund financial statement reporting (IFRS, Irish GAAP, US GAAP) and relevant regulation.
• Strong team player who can thrive in a large complex global organisation

Core Competencies

• Proven people-management and leadership skills, demonstrate excellent communication and

organisational skills with a proven track record in a leadership role.

• Be a team player, have an ability to collaborate with colleagues to generate new ideas in a structured format that motivates and empowers self and colleagues to continuously question the norm to be best in class.
• Ability to multi-task and be comfortable with managing complex situations as they arise.
• Have an enquiring mind and a willingness to investigate and solve problems.
• Self-motivated and determined to achieve (strong work ethic, drive, determination, execution).
• Excellent risk excellence mindset and application.
• Advanced PC literacy especially MS Office (Outlook, Excel, Powerpoint)
• Take ownership of outcomes and be personally accountable for the end result.
• Possess a strong empathy and emotional intelligence when dealing with staff.

Disposition

• Self-motivated
• Hard working
• Professional
• Strong attention to detail
• Multi-tasking ability
• Enthusiastic
• Adaptable
• Innovative
• Flexible
• Strong inter-personal skills