Investment Accounting Controller - (F/H)

Job description

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Your work environment

The headquarters of the AXA Group (GIE AXA) brings together our corporate activities. It provides guidance and support to subsidiaries around the world, in order to ensure the coordination and monitoring of the Group's global strategy, the application of its standards, the consistency of commercial approaches and the sharing of best practices.

The headquarters gathers approximately 1000 employees and is distinguished by its strong international culture (45 nationalities).

Primary mission

You will join the Group Financial Controlling department (“PBRC” for Planning, Budget, Results, Central), dedicated to analyzing and commenting the financial information to the AXA top management and to external parties (shareholders, analysts, auditors and supervisors). This department is under the control of the AXA Group CFO.

SHIP (SHared Investment accounting Platform) is a part of the Investment Accounting & Controlling Program, launched in 2006 under the AXA Group CFO sponsorship. This Program aimed at harmonizing systems, processes & organization for Investment Accounting in the world and achieve the following benefits:

• lower running costs ;
• lower cost of adapting to new regulations (Solvency II…) or new investor relations requirements ;
• increased consistency of financial reporting ;
• lower costs of integrating future acquisitions in Europe.

The main objective of the SHared Investment accounting Platform (SHIP) is:

• implementing a shared investment platform for the largest worldwide insurance entities ;
• harmonizing processes and accounting standards ;
• setting up a Shared Services Organization.

The platform is operated by two shared organizations: a Center of Excellence (CoE) acting as a hub for technical expertise, located in Paris – France, and a Financial Shared Service Center (FSSC) located in Bangalore and Pune - India.

Your objective

As Investment Accounting Controller of SHIP Center of Excellence, you will support the Country Account Manager taking care of the relationship with entities in his/her scope as far as investment accounting and reporting are concerned, and will deliver statutory, regulatory and IFRS9 financial statements as well as all related reporting. In this context, you will interact with a team of professionals in the COE and control the activity performed by the FSSC team.

Main activities

Your main activities will be:

1. Interact with FSSC, local and global PBR as well as local teams in the entities of your scope.

Be the Point of Contact for FSSC and other local/group teams (investment department, ALM, actuaries, Group asset managers, other local accounting teams, GRM) on every matters dealing with investment accounting under IFRS9 and local GAAPs, as well as group/local regulatory and financial reporting on assets invested in your scope.

Be the Point of Contact of local accounting and investment teams on following technical topics:

• Accounting and consolidation rules ;
• Support in the understanding of financial information reported in accounting statements ;
• Support in the documentation of accounting impacts and risks of invested assets (incl joint work with experts) ;
• Support local investments and accounting departments in technical development follow up.

2. Monitor end-to-end closing processes, incl. control framework enabling sign off of local and IFRS9 financial statements, go through all reports prepared by FSSC and validate their consistency for XL scope:

Participate in all closing processes in close ties with relevant COE teams as well as FSSC, i.e.:

• Monthly closings ;
• Monthly delivery of financial statements to local teams ;
• Monthly delivery of regulatory and group reports ;
• IFC controls and relationship with external auditors.

Validate quality and reliability of information disclosed and specifically checks contribution of internal and external providers (AXA IM, AB, Local Teams, TAS team, PBRC…), while meeting defined deadlines. In order to achieve this :

• Implement/maintain appropriate level of controls ;
• Identify solution defects and enhancement requirements, raise them to the solution team, and follow up until solution delivery.

3. Assist / lead transversal missions to implement new requirements (new local GAAP and IFRS9 rules, regulatory reporting requests), and contribute to the improvement of existing processes

You will assist the management in various transversal missions and process improvement in close ties with other COE teams, including further automation of reporting, convergence of processes across countries.

4. Analyze / implement new investments strategies in relationship with all parties involved

As Investment Accounting Senior Controller you will assist the management in supporting the implementation of new investment strategies. You will help coordinating the flow of information between local investment departments, local and group PBR and potentially other countries within the CoE to maintain coherence in the accounting process.

Desired profile

Qualifications :

Technical and professional skills :

·  Knowledge of accounting and financial mechanisms; IFRS rules / Insurance principles obtained through a minimum of 2-3 years of experience ;
·  Knowledge of the Finance process domain (Trade and asset services, Investment accounting and reporting, audit) ;
·  Pack office knowledge, (SAP) Magnitude will be an advantage ;
·  English mandatory ;
·  2nd language welcome: French, Spanish, Italian, German.

Soft skills and competencies :

·  Strong analytical and problem-solving skills ;
·  Highly organized and structured; ability to work with autonomy ;
·  Curious, proactive, reactive with a good business sense ;
·  Good inter-cultural skills; ability to work in an international environment ;
·  Ability to quickly build an effective and trust-based relationship with all entities & Group correspondents ;
·  Ability to convince and challenge ;
·  Open to change and flexible ;
·  Good team player.