Finance Shared Services Manager

Mott MacDonald is a global engineering, management, and development consultancy committed to delivering impactful work that shapes the future.

We are a team of over 20,000 experts working across the world in more than 50 countries.
We are proud to be part of an ever-changing global industry, delivering transformative work that’s defining our future. It’s our people who power that performance. As an employee-owned business, we invest in creating a space for everyone to feel safe and valued and empowered with the right tools and support. 

Whether you want to pursue excellence in your specialism or broaden your experience with flexible roles across our business, you’ll be connected to a community of global experts championing you to be your best. Join us and shape your story with Mott MacDonald, where everyone has the opportunity to be brilliant.

Role Overview

This is an opportunity to shape the next chapter of Finance Shared Services at Mott MacDonald.

Leading around 125 colleagues in India, while building strong operational alignment with a further 25 colleagues in Thailand, you’ll bring together people, process and technology to create a high-performing, resilient and increasingly strategic finance capability.

Your mandate goes beyond running today’s operation. You’ll help evolve shared services from its strong foundations in transactional finance, reporting and reconciliations into a broader, world-class finance capability. You’ll simplify and standardize how we work, strengthen controls, unlock automation, and create opportunities for people to broaden their skills and careers.

Reporting to Group Management Accountant, the role holder will lead the ambition to build a shared services organisation recognized not just for operational excellence, but for the quality of its people, customer experience and contribution to Mott MacDonald’s wider business.

Key responsibilities

Alignment with Group Finance Strategy

• Ensure the direction, priorities and activities of the shared services operation are fully aligned with the Group Finance strategy.
• Translate Group Finance objectives into practical operating plans, team priorities, and measurable performance outcomes.
• Ensure investment in people, systems, process improvement, and automation supports the future requirements of Group Finance.
• Provide clear feedback to Group Finance leadership on operational risks, capacity requirements, and opportunities to improve service delivery.
• Ensure the India and Thailand teams understand how their work contributes to wider Group Finance objectives and business performance.

Transformation

• Deliver a multi-year FSS transformation roadmap aligned with Group Finance strategy and global accounting requirements.
• Assess the current operating model, define the target operating model, and govern prioritised initiatives, benefits, risks and dependencies while maintaining service continuity and embedding continuous improvement.
• Own the FSS digital roadmap in partnership with Group Finance and digital teams, simplifying and standardising processes before prioritising workflow, ERP, RPA, analytics and appropriate AI solutions.
• Track benefits realisation, improve master-data quality, and provide clear dashboards and performance metrics, with defined ownership and effective controls for automated processes.

Process Standardisation and Efficiency

• Establish standardised end-to-end processes, controls, procedures and service expectations across FSS.
• Minimise unnecessary local and regional variation, ensuring that exceptions are justified, documented and appropriately governed.
• Simplify processes by removing duplication, avoidable hand-offs, rework and manual activity before applying technology solutions.
• Use operational data and performance insights to identify capacity constraints, inefficiencies and improvement opportunities, delivering measurable gains in productivity, quality, cost-effectiveness and turnaround times.
• Ensure that efficiency improvements do not compromise service quality, financial control or employee wellbeing.
• Benchmark FSS performance against leading shared services organisations and use the findings to support progress towards world-class performance.

FSS Organisation and Capability

• Design a scalable FSS organisation structure with clear accountabilities, appropriate spans of control and a strong leadership layer, supported by effective workforce and capacity planning.
• Partner with HR on role architecture, recruitment, retention and succession, establishing the workforce framework and investment priorities needed to build sustainable capability.

Staff Development and Rotation

• Establish structured development plans and career pathways that build technical, operational, digital, continuous-improvement and leadership capability.
• Use planned rotations and cross-training across processes, teams and, where practical, locations to broaden experience, strengthen succession and reduce reliance on individuals.
• Develop multi-skilled teams that can provide effective cover during absences, peak periods and workload changes, ensuring that rotations are purposeful, supported and aligned with business and development needs.
• Identify high-potential colleagues and provide targeted development, mentoring and exposure to improvement initiatives and broader finance roles.
• Measure the effectiveness of development and rotation through improvements in capability, engagement, service quality and succession coverage.

India and Thailand Collaboration

• Build one connected shared services community across India and Thailand, aligned with common Group Finance objectives.
• Apply common processes, controls, technology, documentation, performance measures and service standards across both locations.
• Establish regular mechanisms for sharing knowledge, operational insight and proven practices, including joint improvement initiatives and communities of practice.
• Balance workloads and deploy capacity across both locations to provide agreed reciprocal cover and improve resilience, efficiency and service outcomes.
• Recognise collective achievements and reinforce shared accountability for overall service performance.

Key Outcomes and Measures of Success

• Operational performance: shorter month-end close and end-to-end cycle times, stronger SLA performance, higher productivity, lower cost-to-serve and faster turnaround times.
• Quality and control: reduced rework, exceptions, manual intervention and control failures; timely remediation; improved master-data quality; and increased adoption of standard processes and controls.
• Transformation: delivery of agreed roadmap milestones and measurable benefits from automation, transitions and the target operating model.
• Customer: higher satisfaction, more consistent service, and effective reciprocal cover and workload sharing between India and Thailand.
• People: improved retention and engagement, broader skills coverage, greater career mobility and stronger succession coverage for critical leadership and technical roles.
• Strategic progress: clear alignment with Group Finance priorities and demonstrable progress towards a resilient, scalable and world-class shared services operating model.

Experience Requirements

• Overall 15+ years of experience with significant India-based leadership experience in a large, multi-process FSS, GBS or finance operations environment, supported by strong end-to-end accounting knowledge and a track record of leading substantial cross-country transformation.
• Proven delivery of target operating models, effective governance, process standardisation, technology-enabled improvement, stronger controls and measurable benefits, together with senior stakeholder management, organisation design, workforce planning and change leadership.

Competencies and Skills

• Driven individual, able to roll out programmes effectively.
• Chartered Accountant with experience of setting up or running back-office services.
• Develops strong working relationships with stakeholders.
• Champions automation, clean data, and continuous improvement.
• Drives cadence, escalations, and disciplined follow-through.
• Advanced analytical and critical thinking skills.
• Effective communication with clear and concise explanation, reasoning and persuasion, focused on outcomes.

Highly effective working with little supervision; able to delegate while retaining ownership and accountability

Your benefits and rewards

Our benefits vary by country and are subject to eligibility and local policy:

• Rewards and bonuses: we are owned by our people (no external investors) and through our employee ownership model success is shared through annual bonus opportunities and longer-term participation as your career grows (subject to local plan, eligibility and business performance)
• Medical insurance and life insurance as per local plan (standard and enhanced coverage may vary by country and policy).
• Annual leave in line with local policy (competitive within the market).
• Maternity leave above and beyond local provisions and paternity leave provisions where applicable
• Professional membership/ institution subscription support
• Learning and career development through project variety, technical networks and structured development opportunities.
• An inclusive culture: we’re committed to equality, diversity and inclusion, and creating a workplace where everyone feels valued and supported.