Regional Financial Controller, LATAM

Regional Financial Controller, LATAM

Nord Anglia Education (NAE) is looking for a high-energy Regional Controller to help build and strengthen the finance function across its premium schools in Latin America. This is a rewarding, hands-on role for someone who wants to shape controllership, standards and systems in a highly decentralized, fast-growing portfolio. Reporting to the Finance Director, LATAM, the LATAM Financial Controller supports school finance teams across the region, raising the quality of month-end close, balance sheet, intercompany and reconciliations, and strengthening the control environment. The role sets standards centrally, then teaches, coaches and learns alongside the schools to embed them. The role carries a strong systems and data focus, championing consistent use of Group platforms, improving data integrity, and supporting integration, standardization and centralization projects as the function scales. It will suit a proactive leader who influences without authority and thrives on building structure where little exists. The role would suit individuals used to working in Private Equity-backed, multi-site or fast-paced commercial organisations, and involves travel across Latin America of 10 to 25%.

Financial Control, Month-End and Reconciliations

• Review month-end close across the LATAM portfolio, ensuring it is timely, consistent and high quality.
• Review balance sheet reconciliations, intercompany balances and confirmations, and drive resolution of open and ageing items.
• Strengthen the control environment across schools, embedding standard controls, review disciplines and clean audit trails.
• Support Group component and local statutory audits, coordinating school responses and following findings through to closure.

Standardization of Processes, Systems and Controls

• Design and roll out standard finance processes, policies, close calendars and reconciliation templates across LATAM schools.
• Build common controllership standards that work across multiple countries while respecting local statutory requirements.
• Identify process and control gaps, and lead continuous improvement in a highly decentralized structure.
• Embed a shared way of working so that every school closes, reconciles and reports to the same standard.

Integration Support

• Lead the finance integration of newly acquired schools, from opening balance sheet through to first clean close and full Group control and reporting standards.
• Establish the opening balance sheet at completion, reconciling local completion accounts to the Group ledger and supporting purchase price allocation, fair value adjustments, goodwill, and deferred tax.
• Reconcile the completion mechanism (locked box or completion accounts), including net working capital and net debt true-ups through to settlement.
• Build and maintain full balance sheet reconciliation schedules for every account, evidenced and signed off.
• Rebuild the fixed asset register and establish deferred revenue and fees-in-advance schedules reflecting the academic-year recognition profile.
• Rebase accruals and provisions, including local statutory obligations (end-of-service, gratuity, PTU, severance), align AR aging and ECL provisioning, and bring leases onto balance sheet under IFRS 16.
• Reconcile tax, statutory, payroll, and intercompany balances, confirming Group matching.
• Map the local chart of accounts to Group and OneStream, and support ERP onboarding (Business Central standard, SAP where inherited) with data migration integrity.
• Align local accounting policies to Group standards, roll out the LATAM Delegation of Authority, bank mandates, and segregation of duties, remediating single-approver and third-party payroll exposures.
• Deliver the first clean month-end close under the Group calendar, producing the first management reporting pack and consolidation return.
• Maintain an integration and controllership readiness tracker, escalate risks and blockers to the Finance Director, LATAM, and bring each entity to Group standards on an agreed, realistic timeline gated on evidenced completion.

Systems and Data

• Act as regional finance lead for core systems (Business Central and OneStream), championing consistent and correct use.
• Improve data quality and integrity across the portfolio, from master data to intercompany matching and reconciliations.
• Support system and centralization projects, including migrations, upgrades and reporting automation.
• Build reporting and analytics that give schools and the region faster, better financial insight.

Business Partnering and Stakeholder Management

• Partner with school finance teams as a trusted advisor, teaching, coaching and raising the bar on controllership.
• Learn from schools' local knowledge and feed it back into regional standards and improvements.
• Provide the Finance Director, LATAM with clear, timely analysis on control health and close quality across the portfolio.
• Build strong working relationships across Group Finance, Tax, Treasury and Audit.

Centralization and Transformation Projects

• Participate in and help lead centralization initiatives, including shared service design and process migration.
• Support transformation projects that move transactional and control activity onto common platforms and teams.
• Bring a pragmatic, structured approach to change in a decentralized environment, sequencing work to manage risk.
• Champion automation and efficiency across finance processes, reducing manual effort and error.

Standardization and Continuous Improvement

• Ensure processes, controls and reporting stay aligned with local statutory, tax and regulatory requirements.
• Maintain awareness of legal and regulatory change, and update standards, policies and systems accordingly.
• Identify and implement process improvements that optimise finance operations across the region.
• Share best practice across school finance teams so improvements scale beyond a single school.

Job Requirements

• A degree in Accounting, Finance, Economics or a related discipline required.
• A minimum of 7 to 10 years of accounting and financial control leadership, preferably in education or multi-site service businesses.
• Strong technical controllership experience, including month-end close, balance sheet reconciliations, intercompany and consolidation.
• IFRS and local GAAP reporting experience required.
• Statutory compliance experience across multiple legal entities and countries.
• Experience standardizing processes, systems and controls across a decentralized, multi-country structure preferred.
• Experience supporting acquisitions and finance integration preferred.
• Strong systems and data capability, experienced with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Navision) and OneStream, and advanced Excel.
• CPA, Contador Pblico or equivalent (CIMA, ACA, ACCA) preferred.
• Experience in the education industry or a multi-site industry preferred.
• Private Equity-backed or international company experience preferred.
• Fluent in English and Spanish; Portuguese an advantage.
• A high-energy, proactive builder who influences without authority, and who both teaches and learns from school teams.
• Comfortable working in a highly decentralized structure and energised by helping to build the function.
• Willing and able to travel across Latin America 10 to 25% of the time.
• Takes ownership, strives to improve processes and add value, and maintains a high level of personal integrity.