E-Director General Accounting

At Pearson, we're committed to a world that's always learning and to our talented team who makes it all possible. From bringing lectures vividly to life to turning textbooks into laptop lessons, we are always re-examining the way people learn best, whether it's one child in our own backyard or an education community across the globe. We are bold thinkers and standout innovators who motivate each other to explore new frontiers in an environment that supports and inspires us to always be better. By pushing the boundaries of technology - and each other to surpass these boundaries - we create seeds of learning that become the catalyst for the world's innovations, personal and global, large and small. Pearson Finance Services was established in May 2016 to provide higher value finance services to internal Pearson customers. The service currently supports North America and the UK with approximately 100 located in its office in Belfast.

The PFS Delivery Director serves as the primary delivery interface with the Head of Pearson Finance Services and will join the PFS Leadership Team.

This role has overall responsibility for the delivery of PFS services to its customers and will work closely with Global Capability Leads to design, implement and roll out global best practice processes and controls within PFS.

Transactional processing services are provided to internal PFS customers by IBM's Business Process Outsourcing team. The PFS Delivery Director will work with IBM to ensure end to end integration of processes, and drive standardisation across the organisations.

Main activities/responsibilities:

Service Delivery

• Deliver PFS services in line with cost plan adhering to
• Defined scope, in line with service catalogue;
• Defined service levels and key performance measurements;
• Develop and refine service level agreements, and key performance measures as required;
• Communicate current status of delivery operations to the PFS Director
• Resource and performance issues;
• Possible cost overruns;
• Project status and issues;

Manage delivery in accordance with:

• Comprehensive policies/procedures manuals (desk procedures) used in delivering contracted services;
• Risk and control processes and procedures (as outlined below);
• Identify opportunities to improve service performance, including use of disruptive technologies to drive down cost and increase efficiency and accuracy;

Stakeholder engagement & change management

• Establish positive relationships with senior stakeholders and drive internal customer satisfaction;
• Manage delivery of service, and stakeholder engagement within agreed governance framework;
• Support initiatives to improve the scope of service provided by PFS;
• Maintain PFS organization structure to optimize the delivery of PFS services. Review the structure as often as agreed to with the Head of PFS;
• Manage re-organisation and transformation of service delivery in line with evolving business requirements;

People management

• Manage and direct all delivery resources involved in the execution of PFS services;
• Manage career development activities for team members, team leaders and managers, including performance management, feedback and training;
• Ensure adequate guidance & training of team members to ensure process objectives & customer requirements are met;
• Responsible for attrition management and team recruitment;

Risk & Control

Manage operational risks, issues and associated mitigation/action plans and raise to Head of PFS as applicable;

Manage delivery in accordance with:

Comprehensive provisions for Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity (BC);

PFS controls including specific requirements relating to records retention, access management etc.;

Manage delivery in accordance with relevant data privacy requirements, including:-

• Physical security;
• Logical security;
• Data security & protection;
• Compliance with any Federal State/Local and/or regulatory requirements;
• Provide internal and external audit support as required.

Expected results:

• Integrated member of the PFS Leadership Team
• Achieving stabilisation & maturing the service delivery organisation;
• Manage execution of services in line with customer expectations, at a time of significant change within Pearson;
• Culture of 'Continuous Improvement' established, with targets for improving productivity, efficiency and quality of service crystallised;
• Takes ownership of resolution of customer issues;
• Highly motivated, professional team in place;
• Stakeholder trust and confidence built in the delivery of high quality timely service, and effective resolution of issues.

Qualifications

Qualifications and experience required:

• Qualified accountant with at least 10 years post qualification experience
• 5 -10 yrs experience operating in a senior management role in a shared service environment
• Proven track record of managing large multi-discipline teams (50 ) to deliver service excellence in accordance with SLA's and key performance indicators;
• Manages competing priorities and makes key decisions in a timely manner for the benefit of the whole service;
• Experience in implementing best practice process in a financial control environment
• Experience in developing and establishing Service Level Agreements (SLA's), corresponding operating level agreements, key performance indicators and undertaking benchmarking activities to agree target measures;
• Oracle eBusiness Suite, OBIA reporting, OHP desirable
• MS Office: Excel, Word, PowerPoint