Regional Finance Manager

Welcome

If you're someone who inspires others, owns their impact and wants to elevate what they do, you'll fit right in.

Until July 1, our business was part of BASF. As part of the current transition, all job listings and the application process are still hosted on the BASF platform and therefore fully presented in BASF branding. Please do not be confused by this: All roles are positions at Surventis, and your application will be submitted to us.

At Surventis, we go beyond the surface - in everything we do. We put customers at the center, think one step ahead, and develop solutions that create real value and lasting partnerships. We inspire each other to think further, take ownership of our work, and constantly push to elevate what's possible. If you bring your full self, challenge the obvious answer, and want to grow with a team that means it - this is your place.

About The Role

The Regional Finance Manager serves as the APAC subject-matter expert for selected accounting processes and policies. The role acts as the principal regional interface to Global Process Owners, coordinates deployment of global process standards across APAC and ensures that regional and country requirements are appropriately incorporated into implementation plans, procedures and controls.

The position leads regional process-improvement initiatives, owns selected APAC accounting policies and operating guidance, and connects Global Process Owners, country finance teams, BPO providers and transformation programs. This is a senior individual-contributor role requiring strong influence, process expertise and cross-functional leadership rather than direct people management.

How You Will Do It

Global Process Owner Interface

• Serve as the primary APAC accounting contact for assigned Global Process Owners.
• Represent APAC requirements, constraints, risks and implementation feedback in global process forums.
• Assess the regional impact of proposed global process, policy, system and control changes.
• Coordinate APAC input into global process design, prioritization, testing and deployment plans.
• Maintain clear decision logs, action tracking and escalation channels between global and regional stakeholders.
• Escalate material conflicts between global standards and local statutory or regulatory requirements.

Global Standard Process Deployment

• Lead regional planning and coordination for rollout of global accounting standards, templates and procedures.
• Translate global designs into practical APAC implementation requirements and country-level actions.
• Identify affected stakeholders, process dependencies, local deviations and readiness requirements.
• Coordinate testing, user acceptance, cutover, stabilization and post-implementation reviews for assigned initiatives.
• Monitor adoption and effectiveness after deployment and drive remediation where standards are not operating as intended.
• Ensure approved local exceptions are documented, governed and periodically reviewed.

APAC Policy Ownership & Governance

• Act as APAC policy owner for selected accounting processes, tools or operating standards.
• Develop, maintain and periodically review regional policies, procedures, control guidance and operating instructions.
• Ensure regional guidance remains aligned with global policies, applicable accounting standards and approved local requirements.
• Coordinate review and approval of policy updates with relevant accounting, tax, treasury, legal, compliance and control stakeholders.
• Manage policy communication, effective dates, version control, exception governance and evidence of implementation.
• Provide interpretation and practical guidance to country finance teams and service-delivery organizations.

Regional Process Standardization

• Identify material process variations across APAC countries, legal entities and business models.
• Define target processes, minimum control requirements and standard handoffs between retained teams and service providers.
• Facilitate alignment between country finance teams, BPO providers.
• Maintain regional process maps, responsibility matrices, standard operating procedures and governance documentation.
• Promote harmonization while preserving necessary statutory, tax and regulatory differences.
• Support clear ownership and escalation paths for cross-country or cross-process issues.

Process Improvement & Automation

• Lead or coordinate regional accounting process-improvement initiatives from opportunity assessment through implementation.
• Analyze recurring issues, process pain points, control gaps and manual activities to identify improvement opportunities.
• Develop business cases, objectives, scope, benefits, risks and implementation requirements for regional initiatives.
• Partner with Global Process Owners, IT, BPO providers and country teams to design sustainable solutions.
• Support automation, workflow simplification, data-quality improvement and reduction of unnecessary local workarounds.
• Track delivery, adoption, benefits and unresolved risks after implementation.

BPO Governance Support

• Support governance of accounting processes delivered by BPO providers.
• Analyze recurring service issues and facilitate cross-country root-cause resolution.
• Support definition and refinement of process measures, service expectations, review points and escalation paths.
• Ensure local statutory and compliance requirements are reflected in service procedures and training.
• Coordinate improvement actions that require changes across retained teams, providers, systems or policies.
• Provide process expertise during service transitions, scope changes and stabilization.

Controls, Risk & Compliance Integration

• Embed appropriate control requirements into regional process standards and transformation solutions.
• Partner with internal control, audit and compliance stakeholders to address identified design or execution gaps.
• Assess process-change risks and ensure required approvals, testing and evidence are completed.
• Support remediation of regional findings and monitor sustainable closure of agreed actions.
• Maintain transparency of process deviations, policy exceptions and unresolved control risks.
• Promote disciplined governance without creating unnecessary process complexity.

Training & Knowledge Management

• Develop regional training, implementation guidance, process playbooks and communication materials.
• Deliver or coordinate training for country finance teams, BPO providers and other process participants.
• Maintain regional knowledge repositories and ensure documents remain current and accessible.
• Support onboarding of local accounting resources and process leads.
• Facilitate APAC accounting communities of practice and structured sharing of lessons learned.
• Build process capability and reduce reliance on undocumented individual knowledge.

Transformation & Strategic Initiatives

• Represent APAC Accounting in global and regional finance-transformation programs.
• Support SAP S/4HANA process design, implementation and stabilization for assigned accounting areas.
• Contribute to Day-2, carve-out, integration and operating-model initiatives.
• Coordinate local requirement collection and regional validation for new finance tools and solutions.
• Support process migrations, knowledge transfer and transition-readiness assessments.
• Ensure transformation outcomes align with the target operating model and long-term governance framework.

Stakeholder Management & Influence

• Build effective relationships with Global Process Owners, APAC Accounting leadership and country finance teams.
• Partner with tax, treasury, controlling, internal controls, IT and other relevant expert functions.
• Influence stakeholders across countries and functions without relying on direct reporting authority.
• Facilitate decisions where global standards, regional priorities and local requirements need to be balanced.
• Provide concise updates on progress, decisions, benefits, risks, dependencies and required escalations.
• Act as a trusted regional advisor on assigned accounting processes and policies.

What We Look For

Education & Professional Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration or a related discipline.
• CPA, ACCA, project-management, process-improvement or equivalent professional qualification is advantageous.

Experience

• Approximately 8-12 years of progressive accounting, finance-process or transformation experience.
• Strong practical accounting background combined with process-governance or process-improvement experience.
• Experience working with Global Process Owners or global process frameworks.
• Experience in a multinational, Shared Service Center or BPO-enabled operating model.
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-country initiatives without direct reporting authority.
• Experience with policy ownership, standard operating procedures, controls and change deployment.
• Finance transformation, carve-out, integration or large ERP implementation experience is highly desirable.

Technical & Process Skills

• Strong understanding of core accounting processes, financial controls and retained-organization responsibilities.
• Ability to translate global standards into practical regional operating requirements.
• Strong process-mapping, problem-solving, root-cause analysis and governance-documentation skills.
• SAP experience required; SAP S/4HANA process-transformation experience is advantageous.
• Strong analytical and presentation skills, including the ability to structure complex topics for senior stakeholders.
• Working knowledge of continuous-improvement methods, workflow design or automation is advantageous.

Languages

• Fluent business English for direct collaboration with global and APAC stakeholders.
• Mandarin Chinese is strongly preferred given the Shanghai location.
• Additional APAC language capability is advantageous.

Key Competencies

• Strong influencing skills and credibility across global, regional and country organizations.
• Able to balance global standardization with legitimate local statutory and regulatory needs.
• Structured, pragmatic and outcome-oriented approach to complex process issues.
• Strong ownership, disciplined follow-through and transparent escalation.
• Comfortable operating as a senior individual contributor in a matrix organization.
• Collaborative mindset with the ability to challenge constructively and drive decisions.