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Group Controller

Function:  Finance
Location: 

Petit-Lancy, GE, CH

Work Arrangement:  Hybrid

Vice President, Finance Shared Services & Accounting (SSC)

Location: Geneva, Switzerland or Poland

Reports to: SVP, Global Corporate Finance
Scope: Global

 

Role Purpose

The Vice President, Finance Shared Services & Accounting (SSC) is responsible for leading the company’s global accounting operations and financial shared services organization, ensuring high-quality, compliant, and scalable financial operations. This role owns end-to-end accounting execution, financial close, statutory compliance, and the optimization of shared services delivery across all markets and regions.

 

The VP will drive operational excellence, standardization, automation, and cost efficiency while maintaining strong governance, controls, and stakeholder partnership with Finance, Tax, Treasury, HR, IT, Internal Audit, and Business Leadership.

 

Why This Role Matters

This role is critical to ensuring financial integrity, operational scalability, and cost-effective service delivery. The VP of SSC & Accounting is a cornerstone of the company’s financial backbone and a key enabler of growth, compliance, and strategic decision-making.

 

 

Key Responsibilities

Accounting & Financial Governance

  • Own global accounting operations, including:
    • Record-to-Report (R2R)
    • General Ledger
    • Intercompany accounting and reconciliations
    • Statutory and regulatory reporting, in collaboration with local CFOs
  • Ensure compliance with US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“US GAAP”), local GAAP, where applicable, and SEC reporting requirements
  • Serve as primary senior leader for external audit and regulatory inquiries related to the SSC, the markets and the regions
  • Operate strong internal controls, SOX compliance, and risk management frameworks
  • Partner closely with External Reporting & Consolidations, Tax, Treasury, and FP&A to ensure accurate and timely financial reporting
  • Ensure compliance with global accounting policies issued by technical accounting
  • Manage local and Statutory reporting

 

Finance Shared Services Leadership

  • Lead and evolve the Shared Services Center(s) covering:
    • Accounting / R2R – end to end
    • Procure-to-Pay (P2P) - jointly with Procurement. Procurement owns until PR approval and Finance thereafter
    • Order-to-Cash (O2C), for the Finance scope (e.g. cash application, collection)
  • For the scope of responsibility described above, drive standardization of processes across regions and business units with a global process owner (GPO) led strategy
  • Establish and monitor SLAs, KPIs, and service quality metrics
  • Balance efficiency, cost optimization, and service excellence to ensure the right balance of captive and outsourced SSC activities
  • Own all outsourced BPO relationships as well as cost benefit analysis for internal vs. external decisions on SSC activities

 

Transformation & Optimization

  • Lead finance transformation initiatives, including:
    • Process simplification and harmonization
    • ERP optimization and system implementations
    • Automation, digitization, and use of emerging technologies
  • Continuously identify opportunities to improve speed, quality, and cost
  • Build scalable operating models that support growth and complexity
  • Consolidate accounting and controlling organizations across the company to strengthen team and process effectiveness while driving cost and efficiency gains.

 

People & Organizational Leadership

  • Lead a senior, geographically distributed leadership team
  • Build strong succession pipelines and leadership capability within SSC and Accounting
  • Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, cost optimization and collaboration in service of Wella’s Speed, Simplification, Accountability and Intensity (SSAI) competency framework
  • Act as a visible and trusted leader across Finance and the broader organization

 

Stakeholder Partnership

  • Serve as a strategic partner to:
    • CFO, SVP of Global Corporate Finance and Finance Leadership Team
    • Business unit leaders
    • Internal control, audit, and compliance functions
  • Provide clear, data-driven insights on operational performance and risk
  • Influence enterprise decisions related to operating model, footprint, and investments

 

Qualifications & Experience

  • Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or related field (Master’s preferred)
  • CPA, ACCA, or equivalent professional qualification strongly preferred
  • 15+ years of progressive experience in accounting and finance leadership
  • Proven experience leading large-scale shared services and/or global accounting operations
  • Deep knowledge of US GAAP, internal controls, and statutory reporting
  • Experience with ERP systems (SAP preferred) and finance transformation initiatives
  • Demonstrated ability to lead complex, multi-country teams
  • Strong executive presence with the ability to influence at C-suite level

 

Key Competencies

  • Enterprise mindset with strong operational discipline
  • Ability to balance control, efficiency, and business partnership
  • Change leadership and transformation expertise
  • High integrity, judgment, and risk awareness
  • Proactive approach to identifying issues and implementing effective solutions
  • Strong verbal and written communication skills across cultures and geographies

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