Group Financial Controller
WORLD CHANGERS TOGETHER
Job purpose
Main duties & responsibilities
- Deliver trusted and insightful financial and management reporting to help drive delivery of the University strategy and ensure the realization of strategic financial goals including operating cash targets, covenant monitoring and comparative analysis.
- Provide effective leadership and oversight of strategic financial accounting, reporting and tax advice to the institution to ensure the implications of decision are understood and University position is optimized. Provide timely, reliable and trusted financial advice, associated analyses, expert technical interpretation as appropriate in the provision of appropriate recommendations and related commentary on strategic financial matters, highly complex policy and planning implications in a format that is easily understood and interpreted by stakeholders.
- Ensure the delivery of core financial operations processes are efficient, effective and deliver a first-class service to the institution. Support delivery of the University service excellence strategy within Finance to ensure our services are best in class.
- Build and foster effective working relationships with College & US teams, working together to establish efficient service teams, regularly monitoring and reviewing performance to ensure financial transactional services meet the changing and evolving requirements of the University.
- Lead, develop and monitor effective and robust financial controls, systems, frameworks, policy and procedural applications to ensure the integrity of business-critical financial information and providing effective oversight of financial and risk management.
- Lead and implement a culture of innovation, service excellence, performance and actively seek alternative approaches in improving service effectiveness and efficiency by harnessing technology.
- Ensure the highest standards of probity and apply best practice applications whilst guaranteeing compliance with statutory obligations including corporation tax, VAT and general accounting requirements.
- Actively support the University's cost consciousness and transformation agendas in facilitating new ways of working thereby maximising efficiency in the interests of long-term sustainability of the institution.
- Ensure that financial regulations, policies and procedures are regularly reviewed and updated.
- Actively support strategic investment and development of the University's global ambitions, providing appropriate constructive challenge and professional guidance as appropriate.
- Establish sound internal control systems and procedures to safeguard the University.
- Develop business continuity and other emergency and recovery plans, ensuring such plans are tested regularly in accordance with relevant University frameworks.
Knowledge and qualifications
Essential
-
Educated to degree level or equivalent with relevant professional accountancy qualification(s).
-
Membership of a recognised accounting professional body.
-
Strong evidence of continuing professional development relevant to the role.
Skills
Essential
-
Outstanding professional profile with an excellent track record in strategic financial leadership with excellent leadership and interpersonal skills.
- Analytical problem-solving capability with well-developed emotional intelligence, judgement and political awareness.
- Highly effective communication skills and ability to influence and negotiate effectively.
- Diplomacy, openness, and approachability; a personable style of strategic leadership and resource management.
- High energy and a capacity to embrace new challenges.
- Personal integrity, self-awareness and a commitment to personal development and self-reflection.
- Strong vision of the finance function as a key business partner and acumen to deliver it internally and externally with a demanding clientele.
- Ability to innovate and successfully lead, manage and implement sustainable change across complex organisational structures.
- Leadership style that engenders a positive collaborative and collegiate culture, sustaining high performing and effective teams that engage with colleagues across the University.
- Technically excellent in both systems and accounting.
Experience
Essential
- Senior financial management / financial controller leadership experience in the public or private sector with Board level experience.
- Experience of leading / controlling large, diverse and both centrally and distributed finance teams with a successful track record of managing complex human, physical and financial resources.
- Considerable senior level experience of developing and managing external relationships with professional bodies, major service providers and regulatory bodies.
- Experience of implementing successful change management, particularly cultural change.
- Extensive leadership experience in financial services, systems and process re-engineering.
- Excellent technical experience across all major areas of finance.
- Track record of developing and maintaining excellent and influential stakeholder relations.
Campus development plan
Our Vision
Over the next 10 years, the major investment will expand our campus footprint by 25%, creating a new urban quarter with the University at the heart of a revitalised west end. This is the largest development since the creation of the original campus in 1870.
This is a unique opportunity for a University to extend the boundaries of its historic core in a central city location. It will create:
- New learning and teaching facilities
- Refurbishment and repurposing of existing iconic buildings for specialist uses
- Identification and design of social spaces that support the student and community experience.
The expansion of our Gilmorehill campus into the 14 acre, former Western Infirmary site will transform the West End of Glasgow. The Masterplan for the site will incorporate:
- New learning and teaching facilities supporting our students and making sure they get the best in modern teaching and learning styles and approaches
- Creation of a Research Hub, housing large-scale multidisciplinary projects and incubator space for spin out collaborations with industry. This will encourage further innovation development
- New public cycle and pedestrian routes and a new central square which will link Byres Road to the up-and-coming cultural quarter for the West End, with new links to Kelvingrove and the newly-refurbished Kelvin Hall
- Refurbishment of five listed buildings: The Chapel, the Outpatients building, the Macgregor building, the Tennent Institute and Anderson College
- Commercial opportunities, including a hotel, restaurant, bars and cafes
- The state of the art Learning and Teaching Hub adjacent to the Boyd Orr building on University Avenue will be completed next year.
Find out more
Living in Glasgow
A UNESCO City of Music, a vibrant arts and culture scene, a food-lover’s delight, and a shopper’s paradise. Just some of the highlights of the ‘friendliest city in the world’. As well as that accolade by the Rough Guides poll, Glasgow has also been named a must visit destination by publications including the New York Times, The Guardian, and Wanderlust.
Music
The city hosts an average of 130 music events a week catering for every taste; from rock to rap, and classical to country. Glasgow also has a world class club scene playing host to some of the world’s top DJs.
Shopping
Outside of London’s West End, Glasgow is frequently voted the best place for shopping in the UK. A must-visit destination for any shop-a-holic, it houses high street chains, international designers, and independent retailers. The West End, home to the University of Glasgow, is bustling with vintage fashion, vinyl stores, and second-hand bookshops.
Arts and Culture
Glasgow’s arts scene has gone from strength to strength, and is the base for five internationally renowned performing arts companies including the National Theatre of Scotland and Scottish Ballet. The city has several world-class museums, which are free to the public, and the city’s architecture is a work of art in itself.
Food and drink
You can be in Glasgow and taste the world with its many diverse restaurants, cafes, and bars. And if you’ve yet to sample the delights of haggis and whisky, Glasgow is the place to be.
The City and Beyond
Glasgow has all the opportunities and excitement of a big city but its compact size means you can quickly travel from one vibrant district to the next. You could be relaxing in one of its many parks, before shopping in the quirky West End, and then dancing until the wee small hours in the Merchant City.
And when you fancy getting out of the city you can reach the stunning Loch Lomond in just 30 minutes, climb one of our many breath-taking Munros, play golf at one of Scotland’s many world-class courses, visit one of our ancient castles, or go further North and search for Nessie! Scotland has also just been named the world’s most beautiful country by Rough Guides.
Relocating to Glasgow
Choosing to relocate to Glasgow is a big decision. There are numerous things to be considered, such as the costs of moving, the cost of living, and where exactly to relocate to. We have created two guides to aide you in the decision making process.
Find out more on relocating to Glasgow at the below link:
WORLD CHANGERS TOGETHER
WORLD CHANGING GLASGOW 2025
Our outstanding disciplinary breadth and expertise has enabled us to make world-changing advances in fields as diverse as medicine, physics, linguistics, public policy and global development.
The key to our success is our talented staff and students pushing back at the boundaries of knowledge and understanding together.
Our World Changers Together strategy recognises the fundamental importance of a culture of open cooperation: not just as colleagues and mentors or students and teachers, but as a community of discovery that reaches beyond its walls and draws inspiration and strength from its connections and partnerships worldwide: excellence that's part of something bigger. The strategy is articulated across three themes:
COMMUNITY
- People centred, globally engaged
CONNECTIVITY
- Collaboratively minded, digitally enhanced
CHALLENGES
- Solution focused, impact oriented
Find out more
How to apply
Full details of the role and how to apply can be found by visiting our website:
The closing date for applications is Monday the 9th of December.
Terms & Conditions
Salary will be highly competitive.
This post is full time and open ended.
As part of Team UofG you will be a member of a world changing, inclusive community, which values ambition, excellence, integrity and curiosity.
As a valued member of our team, you can expect:
A warm welcoming and engaging organisational culture, where your talents are developed and nurtured, and success is celebrated and shared.
An excellent employment package with generous terms and conditions including 41 days of leave for full time staff, pension, benefits and discount packages.
A flexible approach to working.
A commitment to support your health and wellbeing, including a free 6-month UofG Sport membership for all new staff joining the University .
We believe that we can only reach our full potential through the talents of all. Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our values. Applications are particularly welcome from across our communities and in particular people from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community, and other protected characteristics who are under-represented within the University. Read more on how the University promotes and embeds all aspects of equality and diversity within our community here.
We endorse the principles of Athena Swan and hold bronze, silver and gold awards across the University.
We are investing in our organisation, and we will invest in you too. Please visit our website https://www.gla.ac.uk/explore/jobs/ for more information.
It is the University of Glasgow’s mission to foster an inclusive climate, which ensures equality in our working, learning, research and teaching environment. We strongly endorse the principles of Athena SWAN, including a supportive and flexible working environment, with commitment from all levels of the organisation in promoting gender equity.
Our values
The future holds innumerable challenges for our sector, our society, and our world. We will have to adapt and change what we do and what we offer if we are to navigate these successfully. Our strategy and approach may evolve as the landscape changes, but our values will remain constant: a fixed point of certainty in uncertain times.
We have identified our values in consultation and partnership with our staff and student community. Living and upholding these values will ensure that we remain true to the spirit of our community and ourselves:
Ambition and Excellence
- We strive for excellence through our work
- We defend academic freedom globally
- We recognise and celebrate shared success
- We have an unrelenting focus on development
Curiosity and Discovery
- We innovate and solve problems together
- We lead by influence and example
- We engage with lifelong learning and personal development
- We learn from our mistakes
Integrity and Truth
- We uphold honesty, integrity and fairness
- We share our work widely and generously
- We do the right thing, not the easy thing - or we don’t do it
- We take responsibility
An Inclusive Community
- We are one Glasgow team, and we care for and respect one another
- We advocate for diversity and believe in variety as a vital part of a healthy university
- We champion education as an engine for social progress
- We practise and advance sustainability