Independent Food Company is home to some of the region's most recognised hospitality concepts, including SALT, Somewhere, Parker's, Shalwa, Somewhere, and Public. We are a fast-growing organisation with an expanding portfolio of concepts, an active acquisition strategy, and ambitious plans for growth across new and existing markets.
ROLE PURPOSE
- Lead the Finance Center of Excellence (CoE) for back-end accounting across the group.
- Own the integrity, control, and compliance of all financial reporting — and build the standardised platform that allows the CoE to scale across brands and geographies.
- The role is the foundation of the group’s finance transformation; the first 12 months are about clearing the past, hardening controls, and embedding the operating model.SCOPE OF FUNCTION (PHASE 1)
- General Accounting — month-end close, journal entries, balance-sheet reconciliations, entity-level financials across all current entities
- AR & Revenue Accounting — revenue recognition, AR ageing, customer & aggregator reconciliation, cash recon
- Tax & Compliance
- UAE VAT and Corporate Tax, UK tax (Public entity), Transfer Pricing documentation, regulatory filings
- Treasury & Master Data — bank account governance, banking relationships, chart of accounts, vendor & customer master data, project / WBS structure
- Project Accounting absorbed into GA — projects become a coding dimension, not a function
- Phase 2 (~6–9 months in): Accounts Payable merges into the function, expanding scope to ~12 direct or matrixed reports
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Build the CoE on five pillars: (1) single chart of accounts and master data;
- (2) standard close calendar and ledger discipline;
- (3) documented controls and maker-checker everywhere;
- (4) technology that does the work, not the people;
- (5) service-level agreements with the brands.
- Own month-end close: Sign off financial statements per entity, ensure a 5-working-day close cycle, lead the close calendar across all functions.
- Embed segregation of duties and maker-checker: Implement maker-checker on journals, balance-sheet recons, vendor master, bank-detail changes, and payment release.
- Lead prior-year cleanup: Supervise external secondment team (3–6 months) clearing historical audit findings, restating positions where required, building the BSR pack going forward.
- Tax & compliance ownership: Direct oversight of UAE VAT/CT, UK CT/VAT, transfer pricing, ESR, AML/KYC for vendors, UBO registration.
- Master data governance: Establish single source of truth for COA, vendor master, customer master, cost centres, projects/WBS. No brand creates GL codes or vendors without CoE sign-off.
- Build & maintain policy and SOP library: Ensure every transaction class has a documented policy and SOP, version-controlled, periodically reviewed.
- External audit relationship: Primary contact for external auditors, manage audit timeline, address management letter points, drive control-environment improvements.
- Develop the team: Coach Sr Accountants, fill critical vacancies, build a succession bench, partner with HR on capability building.
- Partner with brands and FP&A: Publish SLAs to brands; provide clean, timely actuals to FP&A; support business cases and investment reviews with reliable data.
- Scale the platform: Year 2 deliverable — make the CoE replicable for a new geography or brand addition without redesigning the model.QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCEQualified accountant
- CA, ACCA, CPA, or equivalent (mandatory)10–15 years progressive finance experience, including 4+ years as Financial Controller, Head of Finance, or CoE leadership
- Multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction exposure
- UAE + UK essential;
- F&B, hospitality, or multi-outlet retail background strongly preferred
- Demonstrated experience building or transforming a finance function from fragmented to controlled
- Strong NetSuite (or equivalent ERP) expertise; experience integrating ERP with operational systems
- Excellent communicator able to partner with operations and senior leadership
