Asia Tax & Financial Accounting Manager

Informa is a leading international events, intelligence and scholarly research group.

We’re the specialist’s specialist. Through hundreds of powerful brands, we work with businesses and professionals in specialist markets, providing the connections, intelligence and opportunities that help customers grow, do business, make breakthroughs and take better informed decisions.

Informa is listed on London Stock Exchange and a member of FTSE 100, with over 11,000 colleagues working in more than 30 countries.

Job Description

Reporting into the  Tax & Financial Accounting Global Delivery Lead  this is a strategic and operational role which is accountable for the efficient day to day running of the Asia Tax & Financial Accounting (“T&FA”) team. The Asia Tax & Accounting team are part of a global team who are responsible for the preparation and filing of indirect and direct tax filings, statutory account filings and corporate secretarial filings and supporting the business with day-to-day tax requirements. As the leader of the Asia T&FA team its critical the successful candidate has strong organisational, analytical and interpersonal skills.

The position will provide leadership and will contribute to the success of the organisation through management and development of a high performing & customer focused team; the implementation of robust change management controls, enhancement of processes; and the agile integration of newly acquired businesses into Informa.

Key Responsibilities

Management / General

• Day to day management of the Asia Tax & Financial Accounting team ensuring there is an excellent service being provided through accurate and timely processing of tax returns, transactions & accounts.
• Building and maintaining strong working relationships with key business partners such as Group Tax, Group Finance, and Divisional teams.
• Oversight and management of the indirect tax compliance for all legal entities within the remit of the Asia SSC, ensuring appropriate controls are in place and operational. This will include preparation, review and submission of indirect tax filings and ensuring timely payments and liaising with advisors where appropriate.
• Providing general indirect tax advice and guidance to the business on new events, products and product set up, indirect tax registrations, tax rule changes and other ad hoc queries, liaising with the group tax team as appropriate.
• Providing tax logic for system changes and ensuring suitable UAT is completed to and providing sign off that system changes are tax compliant.
• Oversight and management of direct tax compliance, including preparation, review and submission of direct tax filings, ensuring timely payments, CbCR notifications, local transfer pricing file maintenance and submission.
• Providing guidance and advice on withholding taxes, liaising with advisors where appropriate.
• Management of statutory accounts process, ensuring that appropriate controls are in place. This will include preparation and review of working papers, drafting statutory accounts, and liaising with advisors as required.
• Identifying any areas of non-compliance, ensuring any risks are monitored and tracked and working with the appropriate teams to resolve issues.
• Overseeing tax provision calculations in the entities within the remit of the Asia SSC and ensuring that individual statutory accounts tax disclosures are appropriate.
• Management of relationships with external tax advisors and auditors, ensuring appropriate engagement letters are in place and deadlines are agreed and adhered to.
• Management of tax audits, liaising with advisors as appropriate, ensuring appropriate information is provided and tax risks are minimised.
• Ensuring that all statutory and regulatory deadlines are met in a timely manner and appropriate working papers are maintained.
• Ensuring tax and reserve balance sheet reconciliation are prepared and reviewed in line with the balance sheet framework and any issues resolved as appropriate.
• Ensuring tax cash flow forecasting information, total tax contributions and relevant KPIs are maintained and shared appropriately.
• Building and developing an efficient and effective team.
• Ensuring that any control risks and instances of fraud (both actual and attempted) are reported to the Tax & Financial Accounting Global Delivery Lead.
• Ensuring that any projects/integration/disposal activities are in line with the agreed plans and play an active role in ensuring that any tax & financial accounting work is compliant and managed effectively and efficiently.
• Provision of information as required by Group Functions.
•  Monitoring changes to tax and other legislation and its impact on SSC activities, taking appropriate action as necessary
• Driving a culture of excellence and compliance with Global Policies.
• Collaboration with Group and Divisions to identify opportunities for efficiencies, added value and growth

Process Management and Change

• The Tax and Financial Accounting Manager will play an active role in driving change and continuous improvement in the business and within finance, highlighting potential process or control improvement opportunities with a key focus on customer experience.
• Ensuring all process documents are up-to-date and readily available and that staff are aware of the key processes and how they function.
• Attending governance meetings over financial processes as required to report on issues and to deal with actions as appropriate.

Qualifications

What we’re looking for

• Strong academic background.
• Recognised tax / accounting qualification with significant post qualified experience in Asia including China.
• Proven people management experience essential, ideally with experience of successfully managing and developing people in multiple locations.
• Good presentation and communication skills, with the ability to tailor your style and content to the audience to help explain complex concepts.
• Self-motivated, driven and open to new challenges with problem solving ability.
• Ability to remain calm and focused whilst under pressure and act with integrity, tact and diplomacy.
• Solid planning and prioritisation skills to maintain and improve performance metrics. Ability to multitask, work in a fast-paced changing environment and deliver a large volume of work to tight deadlines, whilst maintaining high standards.
• Knowledge of dealing with integrations, acquisitions and disposals preferred.
• Excellent knowledge of working in global business environment with sound understanding of global process and transactional flows and understanding how SSC processes fit into this wider environment.

• Understanding the impact of change both locally and in the global environment.
• Demonstrable success in balancing the needs of the business with required quality of service.
• Advanced skills in Excel, Word and Outlook are essential

Additional Information

Informa is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, citizenship, or other protected characteristics under local law.