The Role

This role leads the financial control function for the Global Specialty and UK Specialty business divisions, ensuring accurate and timely internal financial reporting. It plays a crucial role in upholding robust financial oversight, providing monthly financial reports, and aiding in performance supervising across various entities.

As a senior leader within the finance team, you’ll lead a team of accountants and collaborate closely with other finance functions to uphold data integrity, drive improvements in execution, and ensure compliance with accounting standards and internal deadlines.

This is a 6-month contract based in our Milton Keynes office 2/3 days a week.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Leading and managing the Specialty financial control team, providing supervision and development.
• Being responsible for the preparation and delivery of monthly management accounts.
• Ensuring compliance with Group accounting policies and statutory standards.
• Maintaining accurate financial records across multiple legal entities.
• Collaborating with FP&A, IBA, Cashiers, and international finance teams to resolve accounting matters.
• Reviewing and approving accounting entries and balance sheet reconciliations.
• Identifying and implementing improvements to accelerate month-end reporting.
• Leading all aspects of the audit procedure and coordinating with outside auditors and relevant parties.
• Coordinating with Group Tax for timely and accurate tax submissions.
• Ensuring all internal reporting deadlines are consistently met.

Who We’re Looking For

• A confident leader with experience managing finance teams.
• Strong communicator with excellent stakeholder leadership skills.
• Detail-oriented with a dedication to financial accuracy and integrity.
• Able to work optimally across multiple entities and jurisdictions.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, complex environment.
• Proactive in identifying process improvements and driving efficiencies.
• Skilled in technical accounting with a strong grasp of IFRS and UK GAAP.
• Collaborative and able to build positive relationships across finance functions.
• Experienced in managing audits and working with external auditors.
• Capable of balancing strategic oversight with hands-on financial control.

Qualifications

• Fully qualified accountant (e.g., ACA, ACCA, CIMA).
• Minimum of 5 years post-qualification experience in financial control.

What do we offer in return?

A career that you define. At Howden, we value diversity – there is no one Howden type. Instead, we’re looking for individuals who share the same values as us:

• Our successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new.
• We support each other in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges.
• We are determined to make a positive difference at work and beyond.

Diversity and Inclusion

• Our successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new.
• We support each other, in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges.
• We are determined to make a positive difference, at work and beyond.

Reasonable adjustments

We're committed to providing reasonable accommodations at Howden to ensure that our positions align well with your needs. Besides the usual adjustments such as software, IT, and office setups, we can also accommodate other changes such as flexible hours* or hybrid working*.

Our sustainability promise

We’re on a life-long journey to become an ever-more sustainable group. It's a commitment to taking care of our people and the world we live in, to doing good business, and to making a positive impact wherever we can. Our governance processes, company policies, and review systems are all geared towards our goal of making a positive impact in the world. You can read more about our sustainability work here.