Practice Group/Global Operations team: International Operations

Type of vacancy: Permanent

Full time/Part time: Full time

Location: Leeds – Office based 2-3 days per week, with occasional travel to other offices

About Eversheds Sutherland

Eversheds Sutherland represents the combination of two firms with a shared culture, values and commitment to client service excellence. We are each known for our commercial awareness and industry knowledge and for providing innovative and tailored solutions for every client. 

As a full service law practice, we act for the public and private sector across the UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and the US providing legal advice to clients across the Company Commercial, Employment, Labour & Pensions, Litigation and Dispute Management, and Real Estate practices. 

With 74 offices across 35 countries worldwide, we have become one of the largest law practices in the world and a great place to work and develop your career.

Europe

We have offices in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Nordics and Baltics, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. We deal constantly with large-scale projects involving multiple jurisdictions as well as countless day-to-day activities that help our clients manage their operations across the world.

We have local knowledge, combined with an international overview, and complex European work is handled by some of the leading lawyers in the business. Our multi-office structure also gives us the flexibility to apply creative and competitive pricing solutions. From our European offices, we specialize in many areas. These include: banking, litigation/international arbitration, competition and regulatory, tax, financial services (including insurance, pensions and funds advisory), M&A and private equity, major international infrastructure projects.

In addition, we have experts in sectors such as real estate, consumer, energy and transport and technology

The role

Reporting to the Group Finance Senior Manager, part of a team of 8, and working closely with all areas of finance and team in the international offices. The Group Finance team are responsible for Global Financial Control including group reporting, month and year end results, ensuring integrity of all balance sheets and leading the preparation and audit of the Group accounts and all UK and International subsidiaries.

This role will specifically take responsibility for embedding policies and control internationally and the control oversight for the Eversheds Sutherlands International Group. This role will require strong liaison with the members of the central and wider finance team responsible for financial control.  

Key Responsibilities

• Understanding of international commercial operations to guide the local operating model for existing and new offices/entities
• Coordinating the month end timetable, liaising with all relevant teams, to ensure robust financial reconciliation processes are in place and risks and opportunities are being appropriately identified across the Group
• Ensuring quality reconciliations are being prepared with appropriate supporting papers and providing best practice guidance where needed
• Understanding the annual audit and filing processes for all international entities/offices and working with local finance teams and the Group Financial Control team to ensure deadlines are met
• Ensure integrity of transactions and to ensure all transactions are understood and owned in the local finance teams such that local records are accurate through liaison with overseas offices as required
• Working alongside the Tax team to ensure partner accounting records (capital, tax and current accounts) are maintained to the highest standards at a local level
• Reconciliation of reserves by legal entity ensuring all statutory adjustments accounted for correctly locally and at a Group level
• First point of contact for the queries from the overseas offices

Skills & Competencies required

Skills and Experience

• Strong technical knowledge of IAS/FRS102 and IFRS demonstrated by excellent Financial Control experience
• Professionally qualified accountant with a broad range of experience
• LLP and international experience preferred but not essential
• Must be able to work effectively, build strong relationships and be able to influence and work across complex entities, systems and countries
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

Key competencies

We are seeking the following key attributes:

• Commercial awareness in both approach and delivery
• Strong diplomacy, influencing and persuasion skills
• Confident and credible in dealing with internal and external stakeholders at all levels.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with high attention to detail.
• Pragmatic, robust and resourceful, with the ability to adapt quickly to different situations and personalities.
• Strong project management skills and the ability to manage conflicting timescales and multiple projects.
• Organised and efficient with a ‘right first time’ approach to quality of work.

Diversity and Inclusion

At Eversheds Sutherland, we recognise that having diverse talent across our business brings many benefits, and we are committed to accessing a wide range of views and thinking in all that we do. A culture of inclusion, where each person feels able to be their true self at work and reach their full potential is key. We recognise that bringing together the perspectives of individuals of all backgrounds, life experiences, preferences and beliefs is critical if we are to serve our global client base, people and communities as a leading global legal practice.

Should you require any reasonable adjustments to enable participation in the recruitment process, please contact us so that we can discuss how best to assist.

We are open to considering flexible working options for our vacancies. Whilst we are not able to offer flexible working across all of our roles, many of our people work flexibly in some way, and we would encourage you to talk to us about this during the hiring process if you would like to explore further.

We are a LGBT+ inclusive employer and are Stonewall Corporate Champions.