Director - Accounting

PGS Finance Enablement office   

About Principal: understand who we are

With more than 19,000 employees worldwide, Principal helps people and companies in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America build and protect their financial well-being. We've been doing this for 143 years. A FORTUNE 500 company, we are known for our innovative ideas and real-life solutions that help customers make financial progress, no matter their income or portfolio size.

Principal Global Services (PGS) is the global business services (GBS) for Principal Financial group with offices in India and the Philippines. For more information, visit Follow us on Xcorp (previously Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Job Purpose: this section helps you understand the business and provides high level summary of the role

PGS Finance Director FEO

This is a unique opportunity to shape and lead the global delivery backbone of our newly established Finance Enablement Office (FEO). You will have the mandate to build scalable delivery models, accelerate transformation, and ensure Finance remains a true enabler of enterprise value creation.

Finance Enablement Office (FEO) is a critical step in ensuring alignment, transparency, and coordinated execution across our Finance priorities. The FEO will focus on three main functions which include: Finance Portfolio Planning, Finance Global Delivery, and Finance Operating Model Explorations. This is an important milestone in our Finance transformation journey, enabling us to simplify decision-making, strengthen accountability, and operate as one integrated Finance team.

Key Competencies

• Strategic and critical thinking
• Execution excellence and delivery discipline
• Change leadership and transformation mindset
• Collaboration and stakeholder engagement
• Strong communication and influencing skills
• Focus on digital, automation, and continuous improvement

Essential deliverables: the section helps understand the job ownership and accountability

1. Leadership & Strategy
   1. Establish and lead the global delivery agenda for Finance, aligning with FEO's vision of operational excellence, consistency, and scalability.
   2. Partner with Finance Portfolio Planning and Operating Model teams to ensure delivery priorities are resourced and executed effectively.
   3. Assist in defining global delivery strategy, standards, and frameworks, ensuring alignment with finance transformation and organizational objectives.
2. Delivery & Execution
   1. Oversee the execution of enterprise-wide finance global delivery, projects, and initiatives across all regions.
   2. Drive consistent delivery models across processes, systems, and geographies, ensuring quality, scalability, and efficiency.
   3. Embed automation, digitization, and continuous improvement into finance delivery to optimize resource utilization and cost efficiency.
3. Stakeholder Management
   1. Work with PGS CFO to act as the primary delivery leader for Finance, engaging with senior stakeholders (CFO, FEO leadership, Finance transformation teams, business leaders).
   2. Collaborate with cross-functional teams (Technology, Operations, HR, Risk, etc.) to enable integrated and seamless delivery outcomes.
   3. Provide transparency and reporting to executive leadership on delivery progress, risks, and outcomes.
4. People & Capability Building
   1. Manage transitions and build high performing delivery team in PGS.
   2. Establish best practices, governance models, and training to enable capability uplift and operational consistency.
   3. Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement within the FEO delivery function

Leadership at Principal

As a leader at Principal, you're responsible for activating our strategy, meeting evolving customer needs, and creating an inclusive culture. Our Leadership Expectations are our guide to the standards expected from all our leaders. Our leaders need to be a positive brand ambassador of our core values and purpose. They need to understand our code of conduct and know the responsibility to comply. They stay respectful of diversity and differences and work towards building inclusive teams and partnerships.

Qualifications-Certifications-Relevant Work Experience

Educational background: Qualified Chartered Accountant or MBA from tier 1 business school.

Total years of industry experience:

• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in global finance delivery, finance transformation, shared services within GCC.
• Proven track record of leading large-scale, complex finance delivery programs across multiple geographies.
• Strong knowledge of finance processes (FP&A, controllership, reporting, treasury, tax, etc.) and related systems (ERP, EPM, automation, analytics tools).
• Demonstrated ability to align global delivery execution with enterprise finance strategy and business outcomes.
• Experience driving transformation, automation, and innovation in finance delivery.
• Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills.
• Prior experience managing large, distributed teams in a global environment.

Reporting Relationships

This job reports to: Reetesh Gupta – PGS CFO

Flexibility Option and Base Location

Principal offers modern hybrid working arrangements that allow all employees to adapt to changing work preferences.

Flexibility Option for the role: Hybrid, 3 days in-office with flexible work hours.

Base Location: Pune, India

Principal is an Equal Opportunity Employer and considers applicants for all positions without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, age, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, military/veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws. Principal is committed to creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity and inclusion, respect and integrity, customer focus, and innovation.

Principal reserves the right to change this job description any time, and this job description is not intended to detail every requirement of the job. Other job requirements may be found, for example, in an individual's goals as determined by their leader.