Global Finance Operations Advisory Lead
Bayer
At Bayer we’re visionaries, driven to solve the world’s toughest challenges and striving for a world where ,Health for all, Hunger for none’ is no longer a dream, but a real possibility. We’re doing it with energy, curiosity and sheer dedication, always learning from unique perspectives of those around us, expanding our thinking, growing our capabilities and redefining ‘impossible’. There are so many reasons to join us. If you’re hungry to build a varied and meaningful career in a community of brilliant and diverse minds to make a real difference, there’s only one choice.
Global Finance Operations Advisory Lead
Establishes and maintains accounting policies and controls, fiscal controls, prepares financial reports, and safeguards the organization’s assets. Responsibilities are within the Accounting Function as a generalist or in a combination of disciplines. In addition, the role leads the Global Finance Operations (GFO) Advisory Team as a global, cross-capability organization, develops empowered Capability Experts, and connects expertise across GFO capabilities and partner organizations and serves as a strategic enabler of transformation, capability development, connectivity, and scalable growth across the broad Finance capability landscape within GFO.
YOUR ROLES AND RESPONSIBLITIES
- • Leads the GFO Advisory Team as a classical line organization within GFO.
- • Develops the team to their best abilities, acting as a VACC leader, where VACC stands for Visionary, Architect, Catalyst and Coach.
- • Fosters and drives close collaboration and open exchange with GFO Capability Communities and Work Squads, Regional Finance Hubs (RFH), Global Expert Hubs (GEH), and Global Process Governance (GPG), while ensuring an ownership and decision-making mindset in the GFO Advisory Team.
- • Provides strategic and functional leadership across the broad Finance capability landscape supported by GFO, connecting process expertise with GFO priorities, transformation objectives, and evolving business needs.
- • Shapes a globally consistent and scalable Advisory setup that can support increasing scope, complexity, and the introduction of new activities into GFO.
Process Ownership and Strategic Accountability
- • Serves as key contact for GEH / Center of Expertise (CoE) and GPOs, leading a team of empowered Capability Experts focused on improving GFO service quality overall while also addressing non-core activities, including projects and knowledge management.
- • Leads the community of Capability Experts supporting all current and future GFO capabilities: Reporting; General Ledger; Value Flow, Product Accounting & Closing; and Intercompany & Service Accounting.
- • Promotes standardization and the use of global tools and enables innovation, continuous improvement, automation, and further digitization.
- • Acts as a strategic advisory partner to GFO leadership by translating Finance, GBS, shared-service, technology, and industry developments into relevant insights and actionable recommendations for GFO.
- • Supports GFO transformation by helping define future ways of working, identifying opportunities to redesign or expand services, and enabling the transition of new Finance activities into GFO.
- • Bridges connections across capabilities by identifying interdependencies, facilitating cross-capability alignment, and ensuring that knowledge, solutions, and leading practices are leveraged beyond individual process areas.
- • Helps shape future-state operating models that balance functional depth, global consistency, standardization, agility, business requirements, and end-to-end effectiveness.
- • Supports the evolution of GFO capabilities by identifying capability gaps, emerging skill requirements, organizational dependencies, and future capability needs required to support GFO's strategic direction.
- • Drives scalability within GFO by strengthening reusable processes, governance, knowledge, talent, and delivery approaches that can accommodate growth, additional scope, and increasing complexity.
- • Connects operational and process expertise with a strategic, enterprise-wide perspective to strengthen GFO’s overall value proposition and long-term readiness.
Specific Tasks
- • Responsible for the employee lifecycle of hiring, people development, retention, and retirement in the GFO Advisory Team, deploying GFO Capability Experts to the respective Work Teams and Squads within GFO, as well as joint Work Teams and Squads with RFH, GEH, and GPG, when needed.
- • Handles HR administration activities and system topics, such as access and permits, for the GFO Advisory Team.
- • Fosters and drives close collaboration, open exchange, and harmonization of operational processes with GFO Capability Communities and Work Teams, Regional Finance Hubs, Expert Hubs, GPG, and Communities of Practice.
- • Focuses on people development and individual performance through consolidation of peer and stakeholder feedback, design of follow-up activities, and support of career development, including stretch assignments, short-term assignments, and project participation.
- • Creates development and succession plans for talents and builds a sustainable pipeline of functional and leadership capability within the Advisory Team.
- • Monitors relevant external market, Finance, GBS, and shared-service developments and brings an outside-in perspective to GFO’s strategy, service portfolio, operating model, and capability agenda.
- • Partners with Capability Communities, Work Teams, RFH, GEH, GPG, and other stakeholders to identify transformation opportunities and support the assessment, design, and onboarding of new activities into GFO.
- • Facilitates alignment across Reporting; General Ledger; Value Flow, Product Accounting & Closing; and Intercompany & Service Accounting, including cross-capability topics, dependencies, and improvement opportunities.
- • Leads or sponsors strategic initiatives that