Summary

About the role:

The Group Head, International Finance Center of Excellence, leads a high-performing finance team providing strategic business planning, financial analytics and decision support to Head BPA of country. The role serves as a key finance business partner to BPA, CFO in driving financial transparency, operational excellence, data-driven decision-making, and continuous process innovation across geographies.
This position is responsible for establishing best-in-class financial planning and analysis capabilities, delivering actionable insights, enabling resource allocation decisions, and advancing digital transformation initiatives that improve forecasting accuracy, efficiency, and business outcomes.

About the Role

Key Requirements:

Strategic Business Partnership: Partner with country BPA team to support strategy execution and business priorities. Provide financial insights and recommendations to optimize investments, resource allocation, and profitability.
Financial Planning & Analysis : Support budgeting, forecasting, latest outlooks, strategic plans, and month-end reviews. Deliver comprehensive analyses of actuals versus plan, forecast, and prior year performance. Drive understanding of key business drivers, risks, opportunities, and performance trends.
Performance Management & Reporting : Establish standardized KPI frameworks and business performance dashboards. Provide insightful management reporting to leadership teams.
CoE Leadership & Capability Building : Lead, coach, and develop a diverse team of finance professionals and foster a culture of accountability, continuous learning, and innovation. Drive standardization, simplification, and harmonization of finance processes across markets. Build organizational capabilities in analytics, automation, and business partnering.
Data, Analytics & Digital Transformation : Champion automation and AI-enabled solutions to improve finance processes and decision support. Drive development of self-service reporting and advanced analytics capabilities.
Ensure high-quality master data governance and scalable reporting solutions. Leverage technologies such as Power BI, Power Query, Power Apps, GenAI, and digital finance tools to enhance productivity and insights.
Cross-Functional Collaboration : Collaborate closely with Data & Digital, and Global BPA teams. Align regional and local financial processes with global standards.
Support organizational transformation and change management initiatives. Facilitate knowledge sharing and best-practice adoption across the international organization.

Essential Requirements:

Professional qualification required (ACCA/CIMA/CPA/CA/MBA Finance, or equivalent).
10 + years of experience in FP&A, BPA, Finance Business Partnering, or Commercial Finance.
Proven leadership experience managing global or regional finance teams. Experience supporting Global functions within a complex multinational environment.
Strong track record in strategic planning, forecasting, performance management, and business partnering.
Strong knowledge of financial planning and reporting processes with expertise in Excel, Power BI, Power Query, and reporting technologies. Knowledge of SAP, BPC is a plus.
Experience with automation, digital finance solutions, and AI-enabled analytics. Strong understanding of resource allocation and investment governance methodologies.

Desirable Requirements:

Influence strategic decisions through data-driven financial insights.
Build a best-in-class BPA CoE delivering scalable and efficient finance services.
Drive operational excellence through standardization and automation.
Develop a highly engaged, high-performing finance organization that supports International growth and transformation.

Why Novartis: Helping people with disease and their families takes more than innovative science. It takes a community of smart, passionate people like you. Collaborating, supporting and inspiring each other. Combining to achieve breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Ready to create a brighter future together?

Benefits and Rewards: Learn about all the ways we’ll help you thrive personally and professionally.
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Group Head - Int Finance CoE

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