The opportunity has arisen for a Senior Financial Accountant to join The University of Edinburgh’s Finance Team for a period of 18 months, to cover an internal secondment.

Key responsibilities of the role include but are not limited to:

• Managing, overseeing and maintaining the University group accounting policies and procedures;
• Maintaining and enhancing the University Group financial control environment;
• Coordinating the delivery of the University Group annual financial statements, statutory returns and other formal papers and returns to various University committees and external stakeholders;
• Planning, coordinating and delivering the annual external audits of the University Group following the accounting framework set by the Higher Education Statement of Recommended Practice and US GAAP;
• Managing and developing the staff in the following sub-teams of FIRST:
  • Financial Control & Subsidiaries;
  • Investments & Endowments;
  • Statutory Reporting, Audit & Policy;
  • Capital Accounting.
• Working with the Finance Transformation Project to deliver strategic changes to systems and processes.

The Candidate

The successful candidate will be a professionally qualified accountant with experience of managing and developing an accounting team. The position requires a strong people manager who is a team player with excellent planning, organisational and technical financial management skills.

• will be a CCAB professionally qualified accountant with a minimum of five years post qualified experience and a track record of leading a high-performance finance team;
• will be team player with excellent planning, organisational and technical financial management skills;
• will have proven ability to demonstrate empathy, engagement and influence with a diverse range of colleagues in financial and non-financial roles including leading engagement with Director of Finance and University leadership
• will have excellent interpersonal and communication skills in order to work effectively with a wide range of colleagues across the University Group
• will have demonstrated the skills required to lead, manage and embed change in complex organisations;
• Prior HEI experience is desirable, but not an essential requirement.