Technical Accounting Director

As a Director of Technical Accounting, you will have responsibility for driving the growth of the service line and overseeing the delivery of technical accounting advice to colleagues and clients. Your role encompasses the oversight of all technical accounting operations, ensuring alignment with business strategies.

This position requires strategic foresight and executive leadership skills to guide major policy decisions and to represent the company’s financial interests in executive meetings and external engagements.

Client Focus

• Take the lead on managing and building client relationships with Azets clients with responsibility for developing relationships on key clients
• Identifies and delivers service improvements
• Demonstrates a deep understanding of client underlying future needs
• Understands current & future forces that will shape and influence clients' needs
• Uses a variety of influence approaches for strategic impact
• Makes decisions based on maintaining long term relationships
• Delivers excellent client satisfaction as measured by relevant KPIs
• Takes the lead on cross service line delivery on own client base

Technical Excellence

• Recognised as a technical expert both internally and externally and generally being an advocate for technically sound advice
• Provides oversight and takes responsibility for ensuring that team members possess the necessary skills, knowledge and behaviours required to deliver accurate, high quality work for our clients and assesses the team’s ability to deal with future technical or regulatory developments and takes steps to address any skill gaps including managing talent / resource and software planning
• Have a broad knowledge of the more technical aspects of other services lines – be able to spot and talk at a high level about matters outside of own service line
• Thinks beyond own area to develop capability
• Ensures that quality is beyond a minimum level, with adherence to key processes and ensuring appropriate training is undertaken

Commitment

• Proactive leadership of tasks to achieve business plan
• Creates and maintains positive environment
• Able to look holistically at department to promote wellbeing, and a collaborative environment
• Is able to pick up on the ‘mood’ of the business and take steps to raise team morale as appropriate
• Leading by example and consistently setting high standards for professionalism and ethical behaviour
• Champions the Azets brand, building on our portfolio of services, values, reputation, and market profile
• Supports the continued development of a consistent and unified Azets brand, strategy and values and is able to challenge colleagues and clients who are not demonstrating these behaviours

Attention to Detail

• Encourages team to raise standards and eliminate errors
• Tracks and acts on quality issues
• Is transparent and shares information with colleagues which could benefit the business, working with the partners in the team
• Is aware of the skills and abilities of those around them, communicating tasks clearly with deadlines and supporting through to completion
• Communicates to the team the bigger picture and objectives of an assignment and is able to strike a balance between seeking further detail and an efficient and commercial output
• Actively takes part in and contributes to the development of Azets quality monitoring processes in own part of the business.

Efficiency

• Deals effectively with conflicting objectives, priorities and agendas
• Draws upon organisational data, understanding of market trends, and latest thinking to identify and take forward ideas for improvements and efficiencies
• Leads the way with digital transformation initiatives through clear understanding of the program and embedding throughout their team
• Is able to critically assess effective use of time, for example ensuring all meetings have a defined purpose and agreed output.

Decision Making

• Takes a dynamic and flexible approach to decision making, using live data to recognise when different approaches are required
• Holds genuinely open discussions, listens to others views, and show a willingness to compromise
• Is able to present a range of possible decision making options to stakeholders, highlighting the positive and negative implications of each to reach a decision
• Is able to identify and extract relevant data to support a decision from a large volume and wide range of sources
• Consistently demonstrates awareness and sound judgement on decisions which are able to be made autonomously and escalates those that cannot to more senior stakeholders
• Actively reviews and adapts past decisions where data suggests original expectations are not being met.

Leading People

• Communicates direction clearly and brings colleagues along on the journey balancing business priorities and people priorities with respect
• Trusts and appropriately empowers team members
• Promotes a culture of openness and trust
• Actively looks for opportunities to develop others, gives responsibility to others and willingly delegates as appropriate
• Comfortable in voicing opinions that may conflict with the status quo
• Builds empathy and support to ensure buy-in and ownership of ideas
• Always upholds and demonstrates integrity
• Has oversight of wider team’s development and their future career progression and leads the support strategies.

Leading Yourself

• Is able to lead a team to achieve resolution of complex challenges
• Stays true to leadership style even when under pressure
• Can step outside comfort zone and actively pursues new challenges and opportunities that support the business
• Lead by example by openly pursuing continuous personal and professional development and demonstrates self-awareness
• Demonstrates resilience but is able to recognise own limitations and draws on and is accepting of support from own network when required.

Driving Business Growth

• Strategically develops and refines own external network and shows evidence of winning work from this network for own team and for Azets more widely
• Able to critically assess the value of business development efforts and takes steps to refine own and team strategies that are under performing
• Leads and builds own client portfolio, demonstrating fee growth from existing services and evidence of successfully introducing new services
• Can identify the commercial realities of a client engagement and is able to seek agreement across service lines on approach to fee setting and fee growth
• Is able to articulate the value proposition for the services the team delivers to support fee growth
• Uses chain of indirect influence. This may include the use of technical experts to help sell a concept by adding credibility
• Takes the lead on ensuring minimum pricing initiatives are followed and is proactive in RRR reviews

Living Our Values

• Shows good understanding of our company values, and making good progress towards consistently demonstrating required behaviours

Technical Skills

• Takes the lead on technical accounting and valuation engagements. As part of this, takes ultimate responsibility for approach, fee, direction and assessment of risk and response. Continues to consult where appropriate and ensures quality of deliverables on all assignments.
• Responsible for identifying and pursuing growth opportunities/ initiatives to support departmental growth targets. Is able to adapt to firm, market and industry changes and can change strategies as a result. Can also appraise growth strategies against cost vs benefit.
• Strong project management skills to co-ordinate workflow and teams across regions to deliver projects within timelines.
• Strong understanding of the different revenue streams available to the service line and being proactive to maximise on those opportunities.
• Utilises available tools and resources to enhance growth initiatives. This may include working with those with access to Linkedin Sales Navigator, Capital IQ, target lists / client lists etc.
• Continuously looking for opportunities to expand internal and external network. Alongside this, looking for opportunities to showcase the team’s service offering to contacts e.g. presentations to external firms.
• Continuously reviews project processes and leads the continuous evaluation of these with efficiencies, innovation, and improvement at the forefront.
• Raise awareness within the firm to leverage existing opportunities by local / national presentations and 1-2-1 conversations with regional partners and engaging with local and central growth teams
• Works with other service lines seamlessly to provide a joined-up service to clients. Also proactively keeps on top of other key service line developments / changes in order to identify cross-selling opportunities on existing/ new clients.
• Leads the way for change, innovation and technological advances for the wider team. Acts as an advocate for smarter working and actively looks for solutions to support with this.
• Actively involved alongside other directors/ partners with department strategy and future planning. Has responsibility for leading a specific area/(s) of strategy/operations within the department, for example finance or people.
• Resource planning and developing an integrated approach to maximise the potential of the team and Revenue streams. Whilst also considering a One Azets approach and what is best for the overall firm.
• Actively supports with recruitment and building a team to fit the requirements of the service line by liaising with the recruitment team and external suppliers. Actively promotes secondment opportunities across the firm.
• Actively promotes charging the right amount of revenue for our work, e.g. being able to assess the value provided to clients alongside future potential. Proactively works with the other directors/ partners to develop a consistent approach across the service line.
• Supports managers with identifying and addressing any underperformance or inefficiency within the team, supporting with solutions such as additional training and development resources. Supports managers with consultation processes on underperformers as necessary.

Qualifications

Holds an accountancy qualification or qualified by experience (e.g. ACA/ACCA/CA).