Director- Legal Entity Controller

The Finance Division globally reports to the Chief Financial Officer and consists of some 3,000 employees worldwide. Finance protects the Morgan Stanley franchise by serving as guardian of the Firms books and records, and by contributing to firm wide risk management and risk reduction. This division maintains relationships with Morgan Stanley’s various industry and government regulators, and also serves as the conduit of financial information to the outside investment community. Finance plays a critical role as advisor to Morgan Stanley’s various businesses and its senior management team.

The Legal Entity Control Group is responsible for the financial management and control of the Firm’s legal entities. This team is responsible for preparing audited and unaudited statutory financial statements; management accounts; US Federal Reserve entity level reporting; and other reporting for senior management when requested. We are also responsible for ensuring that standard monthly and quarterly financial reporting controls and validations operate correctly.

We are hiring Director in our Mumbai office, as part of expanding an existing team in our Mumbai office, with controllership responsibility for more than 400 legal entities. This is an excellent opportunity to be part of shaping a relatively new function and driving the development of the staff and team.

This role will be to lead a team of Legal Entity Controllers in Mumbai, and to have responsibility for the financial management of selected entities, reporting locally to a Senior manager/ Director in Mumbai and with functional oversight from management in Glasgow. The focus of this role will be on New York/ EMEA based entities. The candidate will be required to work with staff in Glasgow to help support our business unit colleagues in other Firm offices.

Specific Responsibilities:

Overseeing the preparation of timely, relevant and value added information on entities and presenting this to senior management, both local and functional, including:

• Review of statutory financial statements
• Review of management accounts and variance analysis
• Validation of US Federal Reserve entity level reporting
• Oversight of monthly reconciliation of accounts and balances
• Co-ordination of all legal entity activity, with key internal experts such as tax, legal etc.
• Implementation of various monthly, quarterly & annual processes for entities managed in Glasgow

Management and development of staff within the Mumbai team.

Responsible for maintaining key stakeholder relationships both internally and externally including: external auditors, Product Control, Company Secretarial and Tax.

The role will also require participation in the development of the LEC function in Mumbai, involving:

• Re-engineering and standardization of processes as required
• Supporting the Business Units in the setup, opening & closing of entities and adapting the entity’s ledgers and system requirements.
• Ongoing entity-specific initiatives and projects
• Contributing to the reporting control framework, ensuring compliance to client requirements and internal policy

Skills required:

• The successful candidate should be able to demonstrate a rounded commercial approach to legal entity controllership and analysis, with proven skills in insightful management reporting, analysis and sound technical accounting skills
• Be confident in maintaining relationships across a variety of senior stakeholders and business areas.
• Ability to manage team work load effectively and balance project, BAU delivery.
• Have the flexibility required to work in a dynamic environment under tight deadlines.

Work Motivation:

• Keen and motivated to work hard and achieve.
• Shows a willingness to learn from others and increase own knowledge base.
• Takes responsibility for own tasks and proactively looks for opportunities to increase responsibility.

Problem Solving & Judgment:

• Shows the ability to identify and analyse the situation through gathering relevant information to understand the root cause.
• Determines the potential impact and implications of issues and takes appropriate action to avoid future recurrences.
• Knows when it is appropriate to resolve matters and offer solutions themselves and when it is critical to escalate to others.

Communicating Effectively:

• Able to explain issues and ideas succinctly, using appropriate mediums and language, to ensure others understand.
• Always ensures that the relevant people are kept informed.

Building & Maintaining Relationships:

• Awareness of other people and environment and own impact on these.
• Responds appropriately to others to build and maintain an effective network of contacts.
• Goes extra mile to ensure needs of others are addressed to highest possible standard.

Commitment to Excellence:

• Consistently shows concern for all areas no matter how small.
• Ensures tasks are always completed accurately, without exception.
• Checks, verifies and reconciles information to ensure no mistakes are made and work is completed to the highest possible standard.

Planning & Organizing:

• Able to quickly and accurately establish priorities.
• Plans own and others’ time to meet tight deadlines and is flexible when priorities change.
• Candidates for the role should hold an Accounting /Finance degree or equivalent, and have an understanding of the balance sheet.
• Candidates should possess excellent Microsoft Excel skills and be proficient in data mining and summarizing and presenting themes and results in a meaningful format.
• Knowledge of financial products which are used in the financial services industry, such as securities lending and repos, and an awareness of the issues would be preferred.