Finance Manager - Perfume & Beauty

Hermès Asia Pacific Limited; Hong Kong; On-site; HKD 900,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Hermès Asia Pacific Limited is seeking a seasoned Business Controlling leader to drive budgeting, forecasting, and regional financial performance across Asia Pacific. The role partners with the General Manager, coordinates monthly closings with central accounting, and monitors KPIs while ensuring strong internal controls and collaboration with IT and central teams.

The ideal candidate has 10+ years in business controlling, fluent English (French an advantage), and a track record in retail or

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, economics or related field.
• 10+ years in business controlling or a similar finance leadership role.
• Fluent English; French is an advantage.
• Experience in perfumes, cosmetics, retail or wholesale is a strong asset.
• Solid understanding of retail principles and practices.
• Strong IT proficiency including advanced Excel, PowerPoint, TM1 and SAP.
• Highly organized, proactive and able to work under tight deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and collaborative teamwork.
• Strong analytical skills combined with commercial acumen.

Responsibilities

• Prepare, challenge and consolidate budgets and forecasts with local and central teams.
• Act as a key business partner to the General Manager and communicate risks and opportunities.
• Lead monthly closing processes with central accounting coordination.
• Analyze variances and prepare year-to-go analyses.
• Monitor and control regional budgets and report sell-out performance.
• Define, implement and monitor KPIs; design tools and processes for accounting and finance.
• Follow up on the regional investment process.
• Partner with central accounting for supplier and customer payments and credit control.
• Serve as regional contact for headquarters on contracts; ensure internal controls across the region.
• Support IT stakeholders for smooth IT project rollouts and interfaces with customers and central systems.

Skills

Analytical skills

Commercial acumen

Interpersonal skills

Collaborative team-player

Highly organized

Proactive

Effective communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in finance, Accounting, Economics or related field

Tools

Excel

PowerPoint

TM1

SAP

Job description

Business Controlling

• Prepare, challenge and consolidate budgets and forecasts in collaboration with local and central teams.
• Act as a key business partner to the General Manager, drive achievement of financial targets and proactively communicate risks and opportunities versus objectives.
• Lead monthly closing processes in coordination with central accounting.
• Analyze variances between year-to-date results and budget, and prepare year-to-go analyses.
• Monitor and control all regional budgets.
• Analyze and report sell-out performance.
• Define, implement and monitor key performance indicators.
• Design and optimize tools and processes for accounting and finance topics.
• Follow up on the regional investment process.

Tax and Accounting

• Partner closely with the central accounting team to ensure timely supplier payments and effective customer payments and credit control.
• Contribute to the production of financial statements.
• Serve as the regional contact point for headquarters on customer and vendor contracts.

Internal Control & Compliance

• Implement and adapt Group internal control rules and procedures to local and business requirements.
• Communicate internal control standards and provide training to local teams.
• Ensure transparent reporting to headquarters and drive related action plans.

IT & Systems

• Act as the primary regional contact for headquarters IT teams to support the smooth rollout of IT projects
• Interfaces with customers (EDI)
• Interfaces with central systems, and external providers

Pricing

• Ensure a coherent pricing strategy across the region, balancing local and global requirements.
• Maintain and formalize the customer price structure database.
• Issue price lists in collaboration with central controlling team.

Team Management

• Manage 2 collaborators to be in line with Hermès management values

Profile

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, Accounting, Economics or a related field
• Minimum 10 years of experience in business controlling
• Fluent English and proficiency in French is an advantage
• Experience in the Perfumes & Cosmetics sector, retail or wholesale is a strong asset
• Solid understanding of retail principles and practices
• Good knowledge of basic accounting principles
• Strong analytical skills combined with commercial acumen
• Highly organized, proactive and able to work effectively under tight deadlines
• Excellent interpersonal skills and a collaborative team-player approach
• Strong IT proficiency, including advanced Excel, PowerPoint, TM1 and SAP

A creator, artisan and seller of high-quality objects since 1837, Hermès is an independent, family-owned French house that employs more than 22,040 people worldwide. Driven by its permanent entrepreneurial spirit and consistently high standards, Hermès cultivates the freedom and autonomy of each individual through responsible management. The company perpetuates the transmission of exceptional know-how through strong territorial presence that respects people and nature, a source of exceptional materials. 16 artisanal métiers nurture the creativity of the house, whose collections are presented in over 300 stores in 45 countries across the world, including 5 stores in Hong Kong.