Financial Controller

Independent Food Company; Dubai; On-site; AED 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Independent Food Company is seeking a senior finance leader to head the Finance Center of Excellence across brands and geographies. You will own accounting integrity, controls, and regulatory compliance, building a scalable platform for future growth.

The role focuses on clearing past issues, hardening controls, embedding the operating model, and delivering a five-pillar CoE with rigorous governance. An opportunity to transform finance in a fast-growing hospitality group.

Qualifications

• Qualified accountant with CA, ACCA or CPA or equivalent.
• 10–15 years progressive finance experience, including 4+ years in leadership.
• F&B, hospitality or multi-outlet retail background preferred.
• Strong NetSuite or ERP experience; experience integrating ERP with operations.
• Excellent communicator able to partner with operations and senior leadership.

Responsibilities

• Build the CoE on five pillars: single COA, master data, close calendar, controls, and scalable tech.
• Own month-end close: sign off financial statements with a 5-working-day close.
• Embed segregation of duties and maker-checker across journals and reconciliations.
• Lead prior-year cleanup: supervise external team and restate positions as needed.
• Tax & compliance ownership: UAE VAT/CT, UK CT/VAT, ESR and KYC for vendors.
• External audit relationship: manage timeline and drive control-environment improvements.

Skills

Excellent communicator

Leadership

Financial reporting

ERP integration

Education

CA/ACCA/CPA or equivalent

Tools

NetSuite

ERP systems

Job description

Independent Food Company is home to some of the region's most recognised hospitality concepts, including SALT, Somewhere, Parker's, Shalwa, Somewhere, and Public. We are a fast-growing organisation with an expanding portfolio of concepts, an active acquisition strategy, and ambitious plans for growth across new and existing markets.

ROLE PURPOSE

Lead the Finance Center of Excellence (CoE) for back-end accounting across the group. Own the integrity, control, and compliance of all financial reporting — and build the standardised platform that allows the CoE to scale across brands and geographies. The role is the foundation of the group’s finance transformation; the first 12 months are about clearing the past, hardening controls, and embedding the operating model.

SCOPE OF FUNCTION (PHASE 1)

• General Accounting — month-end close, journal entries, balance-sheet reconciliations, entity-level financials across all current entities
• AR & Revenue Accounting — revenue recognition, AR ageing, customer & aggregator reconciliation, cash recon
• Tax & Compliance — UAE VAT and Corporate Tax, UK tax (Public entity), Transfer Pricing documentation, regulatory filings
• Treasury & Master Data — bank account governance, banking relationships, chart of accounts, vendor & customer master data, project / WBS structure
• Project Accounting absorbed into GA — projects become a coding dimension, not a function
• Phase 2 (~6–9 months in): Accounts Payable merges into the function, expanding scope to ~12 direct or matrixed reports

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Build the CoE on five pillars: (1) single chart of accounts and master data; (2) standard close calendar and ledger discipline; (3) documented controls and maker-checker everywhere; (4) technology that does the work, not the people; (5) service-level agreements with the brands.
• Own month-end close: Sign off financial statements per entity, ensure a 5-working-day close cycle, lead the close calendar across all functions.
• Embed segregation of duties and maker-checker: Implement maker-checker on journals, balance-sheet recons, vendor master, bank-detail changes, and payment release.
• Lead prior-year cleanup: Supervise external secondment team (3–6 months) clearing historical audit findings, restating positions where required, building the BSR pack going forward.
• Tax & compliance ownership: Direct oversight of UAE VAT/CT, UK CT/VAT, transfer pricing, ESR, AML/KYC for vendors, UBO registration.
• Master data governance: Establish single source of truth for COA, vendor master, customer master, cost centres, projects/WBS. No brand creates GL codes or vendors without CoE sign-off.
• Build & maintain policy and SOP library: Ensure every transaction class has a documented policy and SOP, version-controlled, periodically reviewed.
• External audit relationship: Primary contact for external auditors, manage audit timeline, address management letter points, drive control-environment improvements.
• Develop the team: Coach Sr Accountants, fill critical vacancies, build a succession bench, partner with HR on capability building.
• Partner with brands and FP&A: Publish SLAs to brands; provide clean, timely actuals to FP&A; support business cases and investment reviews with reliable data.
• Scale the platform: Year 2 deliverable — make the CoE replicable for a new geography or brand addition without redesigning the model.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Qualified accountant — CA, ACCA, CPA, or equivalent (mandatory)
• 10–15 years progressive finance experience, including 4+ years as Financial Controller, Head of Finance, or CoE leadership
• F&B, hospitality, or multi-outlet retail background strongly preferred
• Demonstrated experience building or transforming a finance function from fragmented to controlled
• Strong NetSuite (or equivalent ERP) expertise; experience integrating ERP with operational systems

Excellent communicator able to partner with operations and senior leadership