Regional Balance Sheet Substantiation Lead – Asia

Manulife; Manila; Hybrid; PHP 2,000,000 - 3,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Manulife Manila seeks a Manager to lead the Balance Sheet Substantiation Initiative across Asia, standardizing reconciliations, ownership, and review practices. The role drives governance, cross-functional collaboration, and remediation delivery from the Philippines and Hong Kong to other markets.

The successful candidate will oversee backlog clearance, strengthen ownership, and advance a scalable regional framework while exploring automation and AI for improved matching and investigation

Qualifications

• University degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, or related discipline.
• Minimum of five years of relevant experience in financial accounting, balance sheet reconciliation, controllership, financial governance, audit, or finance transformation within a regional or global organization.
• Strong understanding of general ledger processes, account reconciliation, substantiation standards, financial controls, and remediation of aged or unsupported balances.
• Demonstrated project management capability, including management of cross-functional dependencies, risks, timelines, and senior stakeholders.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify root causes and translate complex issues into practical recommendations.
• Proven ability to influence without authority, challenge constructively, and drive accountability across multiple markets and functions.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience preparing executive-level updates and facilitating governance discussions.
• The candidate must be willing to report by day shift.
• The candidate must be willing to report in Diliman, Quezon City

Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end execution of the Balance Sheet Substantiation Initiative across Asia markets, including planning, prioritization, milestone management, issue resolution, and progress reporting.
• Drive delivery for the Philippines and Hong Kong and establish a disciplined roadmap for rollout to remaining Asia markets.
• Maintain effective project governance, risk and issue tracking, decision logs, escalation protocols, and management reporting.
• Coordinate dependencies across local Finance teams, Regional Controllers, Shared Services, Technology, Internal Audit, and other relevant stakeholders.
• Establish and embed standardized requirements for account reconciliation, substantiation, ownership, review, aging, and evidence retention.
• Strengthen account ownership and accountability, including decomposition of shared accounts and escalation of unresolved ownership gaps.
• Review long-outstanding, unsupported, unidentified, or unreconciled balances and drive appropriate remediation, including recommendations for write-off or clearance subject to delegated authority.
• Identify control weaknesses, root causes, and recurring issues, and partner with stakeholders to implement sustainable preventive and detective controls.
• Promote timely visibility and escalation of balance sheet risks to Finance leadership.
• Design and continuously improve the regional substantiation framework, templates, procedures, service expectations, and management information.
• Assess current clearing and tracking practices and recommend scalable process and operating model improvements.
• Partner with Technology and process owners to improve system configuration, data visibility, identifier usage, journal descriptions, and traceability of balances.
• Evaluate opportunities to integrate clearing activities and use automation or AI-assisted matching to improve efficiency and investigation outcomes.
• Strengthen documentation and knowledge transfer to reduce key-person dependency and support consistent adoption across markets.
• Build strong partnerships with market Controllers, account owners, functional teams, Shared Services, and regional leadership.
• Influence stakeholders to adopt standardized requirements and take timely action on remediation and control improvements.
• Facilitate working sessions, governance forums, and management updates, presenting complex issues and recommendations clearly and concisely.
• Develop change, communication, and training approaches that support adoption and sustainable execution.

Job description

Manulife Manila seeks a Manager to lead the Balance Sheet Substantiation Initiative across Asia, standardizing reconciliations, ownership, and review practices. The role drives governance, cross-functional collaboration, and remediation delivery from the Philippines and Hong Kong to other markets.

The successful candidate will oversee backlog clearance, strengthen ownership, and advance a scalable regional framework while exploring automation and AI for improved matching and investigation