Internal Controls Manager

**Join one of the most prestigious luxury company in the world

Role Overview**
The Internal Controls Manager supports our luxury brand and functional area management throughout the Mexico market to ensure adequate design of business process and participates in critical activities to monitor effectiveness of the underlying controls. The person in this role will acquire a thorough understanding of our business and, where deficiencies are identified, partner with process owners to customize and implement viable remediation plans. With Management's support and in close collaboration with the Regional Internal Controls team, this person will apply risk based approach while planning the Internal Countrols function activities and play an active role in developing risk mitigation strategies, related process documentation and policies & procedures.

Responsibilities

• Develop a thorough understanding of our business, culture, and the underlying operational flows within our matrix organization, comprising ten luxury product brands and the central service platform. Build confidence to, with minimal supervision, pro-actively support management and become a respected contributor in developing value added and pragmatic recommendations that address process inefficiencies and control weaknesses.
• Evaluate the design of internal controls and monitor control performance as part of the Richemont's mandatory controls assessment and reporting program (Swiss SOX). Conduct periodic control framework reviews with process owners and document changes to facilitate management's annual self-assessments. Execute testing of effectiveness of controls within the Swiss SOX scope.
• Participate in the risk based evaluation of processes to support the brand and service platform management with the identification of key risks and development of mitigating strategies and activities. Manage the Internal Controls Team activities accordingly and execute process walkthroughs and control testing in the areas highlighted via the risk-based approach. Conduct ad hoc operational and compliance reviews as requested by functional management.
• Promptly communicate identified deficiencies to management and work to develop strong partnership in collaboratively building remediation action plans. Where possible, embed controls within processes and design control metrics to identify deviations quickly.
• Periodically monitor progress of deficiency remediation and follow up with the control owners when delays or deviations from the agreed action plans are identified. Perform remediation sustainability reviews related to corrective actions to verify controls effectiveness after a period of operation.
• Ensure appropriate quality of the control narrative and deficiency documentation as well as evidential support data in the Richemont's global monitoring and reporting system.
• Coordinate some aspects of the local IT systems user access and segregation of duties (SOD) reviews. Collaborate with IT when organizational and business evolution requires new composite roles and updates to system accesses. Periodically validate the scoping of access reviews for the locally sourced applications and support the application owners in the review process and remediation of unwarranted access.
• Partner with functional area management in new business integration, process streamlining, or efficiency improvement projects to redesign or establish new controls as part of the revised or new process implementations. Support management in the revision and creation of policies as well as documenting processes in flow charts, SOP's, narratives, and matrices.
• To a limited extent, participate in control performance. Conduct periodic physical inventory count observations to monitor adequacy of the cycle counts and clearing processes, and work with Operations to identify reasons for inventory shrink and ensure controls are in place to remediate gaps. Upon request by the Operations management, participate in execution of controls in scope of the 4-eyes principle, where observation by Finance is required.
• Liase with Internal and External auditors during audits to provide logistical support as well as to facilitate information sharing, issue remediation plan development and audit report clearance with Mangement.

Qualifications
Required Skills

• Minimum seven to ten years of experience in auditing /SOX process /internal controls, including leadership, managerial roles requiring supervision of professional staff.
• Thorough understanding of COSO framework and key risk assessment and audit concepts. Ability to apply these concepts to evaluate the adequacy and efficiency of business processes and to mitigate risk to acceptable tolerance levels
• Experienced in conducting reviews, audits, and testing to ensure procedures are followed and controls are operating effectively
• Ability to analyze large data sets and compile detailed reporting
• Experience with complex processes analysis and documentation
• Knowledge of IT system access analysis and SOD conflict resolution
• Functional knowledge of SAP preferred
• Demonstrated computer skills and proficiency in Microsoft Office (highly proficient in Excel preferred)

Other

• Unquestioned personal integrity with strong ethics and values consistent with company culture
• Dependable, energetic, curious, with excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Strong analytical capability with a logical approach to identifying and evaluating issues and problem solving
• Ability to stand firm on difficult issues when required
• Capable of working independently and with minimum supervision
• Displays awareness of the need for confidentiality in sensitive matters
• Strong attention to detail with the ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously
• Self-starter with team player approach

Travel Requirements

• Ability to travel up to 5% to locations within Mexico and North America