Head of Finance India

Job Purpose

The Head of Finance - India is the senior finance leader responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership across all finance activities in India.  This position will lead all finance teams in India, including the Finance Shared Services organisation, while ensuring alignment with global finance policies, controls and strategic priorities.

 

You will report into the SVP and Country Head - India and work closely with the Director of Shared Services along with Finance leaders, the wider finance team and senior stakeholders across the organisation.

 

About Group Finance

 

In joining RWS’s Finance team you will be a critical part of supporting a listed world-leading provider of technology-enabled language, content, and intellectual property services. RWS has growing revenues of over £750m through a combination of value accretive acquisitions and organic growth. Group finance, led by our Group CFO; Stephen Lamb, includes diverse teams across the globe operating in functions including business partnering, operational finance, specialist, and group functions. We cover a footprint of over 100 legal entities in 43 different countries worldwide.  

  

It’s a very exciting time to join RWS Finance for an individual who enjoys change and making an impact! As part of the overall RWS business strategy we are making a significant investment in upgrading our financial systems and processes to deliver enhanced reporting and control, more efficient processing enabling great value through enhanced business partnering and decision support. 

Job Overview

Key Responsibilities

 

Finance Shared Services Leadership

• • Provide leadership and strategic direction to the India Finance Shared Services organisation.
  • Drive operational excellence, automation and continuous improvement.
  • Ensure high-quality service delivery to global stakeholders.
  • Establish performance metrics and service excellence standards.

P2P Ownership & Service Delivery:

• • Oversee and maintain full ownership and accountability of the end-to-end P2P processes, ensuring smooth service delivery across the SSC.
  • Manage service level agreements (SLAs), performance metrics, and reporting for P2P operations.
  • Ensure robust internal controls and compliance within the P2P function.
  • Develop, obtain corporate approval and maintain all related policies, process documentation and training materials
  • Work closely with the Master Data Management teams to ensure key data elements are structured, standardised and consistent across the different systems to ensure operational efficiency
  • Manage P2P systems and process interfaces with external and/or internal partners

Transformation & Continuous Improvement

• • Lead finance workstreams supporting the One India transformation programme.
  • Simplify finance processes and improve operational efficiency.
  • Champion digital finance, automation and AI-enabled finance capabilities.
  • Drive standardisation across finance operations.

External & Corporate Engagement

• • Build relationships with external auditors, banking partners and regulatory bodies.
  • Partner with government agencies to identify grants, incentives and strategic investment opportunities.
  • Represent Finance within the India leadership community.

People Leadership

• • Lead, coach and develop a high-performing finance organisation.
  • Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability and continuous learning.
  • Build leadership capability and succession within the finance function.
  • Promote a One RWS culture across finance teams.

 

Strategic Finance Leadership

• • Serve as the senior finance partner to the Country Lead and India Leadership Team.
  • Develop and execute the India finance strategy aligned with RWS's global priorities.
  • Provide financial insight to support strategic decisions, investments, growth initiatives and transformation programmes.
  • Drive financial discipline and value creation across India operations.

 

Enterprise Financial Management

• • Provide consolidated financial oversight across all India operations.
  • Lead country-wide financial planning, forecasting and performance management.
  • Develop meaningful management reporting and executive dashboards.
  • Identify opportunities for productivity improvements, cost optimisation and investment.

 

Governance, Risk & Compliance

• • Strengthen financial governance across India.
  • Ensure robust financial controls and compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements.
  • Partner with Legal, Tax, Internal Audit and Risk teams.
  • Support Board governance and corporate reporting requirements.
  • Lead finance aspects of legal entity simplification and operating model transformation initiatives.

 

Business Partnership

• • • Partner with Business Unit leaders to improve India’s contribution to commercial performance.
    • Support business planning and investment decisions.
    • Provide financial analysis for strategic initiatives.
    • Enable data-driven decision making across India.

 

Skills & Experience

• Extensive (10+ years) leadership experience in Procure-to-Pay (P2P) processes and shared services, ideally within a high volume global or multi-regional SSC environment.
• Proven success leading enterprise finance transformation programmes.
• Experience managing Finance Shared Services or Global Business Services is highly desirable.
• Experience working across multiple legal entities and complex organisational structures.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior executives across global organisations.
• Experience in service delivery management, including meeting SLAs, implementing performance metrics, and maintaining robust internal controls.
• Ability to set a clear strategic direction, drive process innovation, and share leading practices across the organization.
• Exceptional interpersonal and stakeholder management skills to effectively engage with IT, finance, and other key business areas.
• Chartered Accountant (CA), CPA, ACCA or equivalent.
• MBA or postgraduate qualification desirable.

Life at RWS

Life at RWS - If you like the idea of working with smart people who are passionate about growing the value of ideas, data and content by making sure organizations are understood, then you’ll love life at RWS. 

 

Our purpose is to unlock global understanding. This means our work fundamentally recognizes the value of every language and culture. So, we celebrate difference, we are inclusive and believe that diversity makes us strong. We want every employee to grow as an individual and excel in their career. 

 

In return, we expect all our people to live by the values that unite us: to partner, putting clients fist and winning together, to pioneer, innovating fearlessly and leading with vision and courage, to progress, aiming high and growing through actions and to deliver, owning the outcome and building trust with our colleagues and clients.

 

RWS embraces DEI and promotes equal opportunity, we are an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. RWS is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at RWS are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sex, age, disability, or sexual orientation. RWS will not tolerate discrimination based on any of these characteristics. 

RWS Values 

 

Get the 3Ps right – Partner, Pioneer, Progress – and we´ll Deliver together as RWS.

 

Recruitment Agencies: RWS Holdings PLC does not accept agency resumes.  Please do not forward any unsolicited resumes to any RWS employees.  Any unsolicited resume received will be treated as the property of RWS and Terms & Conditions associated with the use of such resume will be considered null and void.