Functional Head - Finance & Commercial

Job Purpose

Lead the strategy, planning, execution, and oversight of all finance and commercial activities to ensure accurate accounting, effective fund and asset management, materials control, statutory compliance, and the development and implementation of Management Information Systems (MIS), cost controls, and IT systems. Drive initiatives to improve profitability through cost reduction and efficiency enhancements within the unit.

Key Responsibilities

• Coordinate and develop strategic and annual business plans aimed at maximizing unit profitability, including generating reliable MIS reports, analyzing revenue, costs, and capital expenditure, and monitoring plan implementation through periodic reviews.
• Manage the IT function to support current and future business needs by guiding IT team plans for software development/modifications, evaluating IT technologies for cost-benefit, maintaining IT infrastructure, and ensuring IT security.
• Build and nurture a strong, agile, and motivated team fostering a culture of teamwork and trust through inspirational leadership. This includes identifying skill gaps, planning and providing training, employee counseling, delegation, job rotation for multi-skilling, implementing engagement plans, and establishing recognition and reward mechanisms in alignment with unit policies.
• Oversee budget preparation to align with business development goals, ensuring timely data collection, correct assumptions for operating expenses and working capital, reviewing proposals with department heads, submitting budgets for approval, tracking exceptions for control, and initiating corrective actions reporting to leadership.
• Optimize working capital management to reduce interest expenses by planning requirements, coordinating accounts receivable collections, negotiating supplier payment schedules, preventing idle funds, promoting timely stock liquidation, and maintaining banking relationships.
• Plan material availability and supervise commercial operations related to operating and capital expenditures, including raw material requirement planning, negotiating cost-effective contracts with an emphasis on long-term agreements, monitoring critical delivery schedules, and developing alternate suppliers for critical raw materials and spares.
• Establish internal controls within finance and commercial functions to minimize costs and inefficiencies, including developing SOPs, setting exception criteria, implementing inventory management concepts like Just-In-Time and vendor inventory, conducting regular reviews such as vendor assessments and contract renewals, analyzing monthly cost variances, and escalating abnormalities to unit leadership.
• Ensure compliance with all statutory requirements by interpreting laws, collaborating with corporate legal teams, scheduling compliance activities, communicating legal changes, implementing corrective measures from audits or statutory bodies, and embedding legal obligations into commercial contracts to sustain business operations.
• Guarantee timely and accurate bookkeeping and auditing by monitoring adherence to accounting principles, setting audit schedules and action plans, resolving observations with various auditors (internal, cost, tax, excise, statutory), and implementing required changes as per recommendations.
• Assess business risks regularly and design mitigation strategies to minimize impacts on the company, employees, customers, and stakeholders. Organize quarterly risk review meetings, lead risk identification and mitigation committees, follow up on action plans, ensure adequate insurance coverage (property, inventory, employees, forex), and collaborate with insurance providers for prompt claim settlements.