Group Head - Int Finance CoE at Novartis in Hyderabad (Office)

Job description

• 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.

Responsibilities

• 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.

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.
• 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.

Skills

Required

• Excel
• Power BI
• Power Query
• Reporting technologies
• Automation
• Digital finance solutions
• AI-enabled analytics

Preferred

• SAP
• BPC