Job Description

Head Finance and Accounting (F&A) Quality

Location: India (Open)

Role Purpose

Lead the design, deployment, governance, and continuous improvement of an independent Finance & Accounting Quality function across Procure-to-Pay (PTP), Order-to-Cash (OTC), Record to-Report (RTR), FP&A, Master Data, and other F&A towers.

The role is responsible for establishing a centralized quality operating model that drives transaction accuracy, control compliance, defect prevention, customer satisfaction, operational excellence, and delivery risk reduction across all F&A engagements.

This leader will build and institutionalize a scalable quality governance framework covering quality methodology, sampling strategy, control validation, calibration, RCA, training, certification, reporting, and continuous improvement.

The role will also own governance of process-related training across F&A, ensuring that teams are trained, assessed, and certified on approved processes, SOPs, desktop procedures, job aids, controls, and client-specific requirements before performing activities independently.

Key Responsibilities

1. Quality Function Establishment & Governance

Design and institutionalize an enterprise-wide F&A Quality Management Framework.
Establish independent QC operations across all F&A towers.
Define quality governance structure, operating cadence, escalation mechanisms, and review forums.
Standardize defect taxonomy, scoring methodology, quality criteria, and control requirements.
Create quality policies, SOPs, and governance standards.

2. Deployment of Dedicated QC Organization

Build and scale centralized and account-level QC teams.
Define QC staffing models, spans, and coverage ratios.
Drive deployment of QC Leads, Analysts, Calibration Specialists, and Quality Managers.
Establish quality operating rhythms across all accounts.
Ensure independence of quality teams from transaction processing teams.

3. Quality Control Framework

Define risk-based sampling methodology across PTP, OTC, RTR, FP&A, and Master Data.
Establish process-specific quality checklists and evaluation parameters.
Implement layered quality reviews, control validation, and QA audit mechanisms.
Drive quality coverage enhancement for high-risk and judgment-intensive activities.

4. RCA and Defect Prevention

Establish structured defect prevention programs.
Lead root cause analysis governance for all critical quality failures.
Drive corrective and preventive action programs.
Create enterprise defect repositories and knowledge-sharing mechanisms.
Ensure closure tracking and effectiveness validation of improvement actions.

5. Process Training Governance, Calibration & Capability Assurance

Establish periodic calibration programs across all F&A towers.
Drive certification and accreditation programs for Operations and QC teams.
Create quality knowledge repositories and training curriculum.
Lead bottom-quartile improvement initiatives.
Institutionalize process-specific competency assessments.
Own governance of process training across PTP, OTC, RTR, FP&A, Master Data, and other F&A processes.
Ensure all employees complete role-based training on approved SOPs, desktop procedures, job aids, controls, policies, and client-specific requirements.
Implement training-needs analysis linked to quality defects, process changes, audit findings, customer feedback, and control failures.
Establish training calendars, trainer qualification standards, attendance and completion tracking, knowledge assessments, certification criteria, and refresher-training triggers.
Ensure new hires and employees moving to new activities are certified before independent processing or system access, in line with applicable operational requirements.
Govern SOP and training-content currency through version control, periodic reviews, approval workflows, and timely updates following process or policy changes.
Monitor training effectiveness through post-training quality performance, assessment results, error recurrence, control adherence, and action closure.
Provide leadership visibility through training-compliance dashboards, overdue actions, certification status, capability risks, and improvement plans.

6. Metrics, Reporting & Analytics

Build enterprise quality dashboards and scorecards.
Track accuracy, defect density, customer defects, audit findings, control failures, RCA closure, sampling coverage, and training effectiveness.
Present quality performance reviews to leadership and clients.
Drive predictive quality analytics and trend identification.

7. Client Governance

Act as quality SME during client reviews and governance meetings.
Lead customer defect management and remediation programs.
Provide executive updates on quality health, risks, and mitigation strategies.
Support quality commitments during transitions and new deal mobilization.

8. Continuous Improvement

Partner with Transformation, Operational Excellence, Lean Six Sigma, and Automation teams.
Identify systemic quality improvement opportunities.
Drive process standardization across accounts.
Improve first-time-right performance and reduce recurring errors.
Build a prevention-focused quality culture.

Required Qualifications

Educational Qualification

CA / CMA / CPA / MBA Finance / M.Com or equivalent.
Lean Six Sigma Green Belt mandatory.
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt preferred.

Experience

15-20 years of overall F&A/BPS operations experience.
Minimum 8-10 years in Quality, Audit, Controls, Compliance, Operational Excellence, or Governance roles.
Proven experience setting up dedicated Quality/QA/QC functions for large-scale F&A operations.
Experience managing multi-tower F&A environments covering PTP, OTC, RTR, FP&A, Master Data, and preferably Treasury / Tax.

Mandatory Experience

Creating centralized QA/QC organizations.
Designing sampling and quality frameworks.
Quality scorecard design and deployment.
Internal audit and control adherence.
Defect management and RCA governance.
Client governance and executive reporting.
Quality Control Team setup and capability development.
Governance of process training, SOP readiness, knowledge assessment, certification, and training-effectiveness measurement.
Experience establishing learning governance for new hires, cross-training, process changes, refresher training, and remedial training linked to quality outcomes.