Accounting Operations Manager in West Des Moines, Iowa at Watercress Financial Group LLC

Watercress Financial Group’s Accounting Operations Manager will join the company at an exciting and critical time in its evolution. As Watercress Financial continues its growth and transformation into a market leader in the home improvement financing space, the Accounting Operations Manager will play a pivotal role in shaping the overall accounting and finance function.

The Accounting Operations Manager will assist in providing best-in-class operational accounting oversight, while also partnering and working closely with the senior management team. This individual will bring demonstrated accounting leadership, ideally in a consumer lending business, with the technical skills to lead the daily operational and servicing accounting functions in a high-growth environment. The successful candidate will be a hands-on operator and will serve as the primary architect in building out the accounting infrastructure that will be the platform for the company’s growth.

The Accounting Operations Manager will be counted on to enhance current financial systems and processes while overseeing daily operations. Ideal candidates will possess exceptional accounting and business acumen, thrive in a hands-on growth environment, and bring accounting experience from a relevant consumer lending company. The Accounting Operations Manager should be a collaborative and effective finance leader, committed to driving excellence, and serve as a trusted executive to the senior leadership team.

Reporting to Chief Accounting Officer, this person will assist in transforming finance processes by driving improvement, automation, and innovation. The transformation will emphasize speed, accuracy, and efficiency, and will accelerate monthly and annual closings as well as building and providing detailed key financial measures, metrics and analytics for effective management decision making. Watercress Financial is headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa and operates with a geographically distributed executive team. The finance team is based in West Des Moines, but Watercress Financial is comfortable with a remote Accounting Operations Manager who will be in the home office on an 'as needed' basis to successfully lead the function.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Financial Strategy & Leadership:

• Execute the company’s financial accounting, reporting, and monitoring in alignment with its business goals, focusing on controls, timeliness and accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Financial Management & Oversight:

• Assist in the oversight of the company’s financial operations, including accounting, budgeting, forecasting, and financial reporting.
• Manage day-to-day accounting and financial activities, ensuring accurate and timely financial reporting in accordance with regulatory standards.
• Identify and execute various departmental and cross-functional projects to successful and timely completion.

Risk Management & Compliance:

• Assist with annual external audit to ensure efficient and timely issuance of financial statements.
• Identify and mitigate financial risks across the organization, including market fluctuations, regulatory changes and operational risks.
• Ensure compliance with all financial regulations, industry standards, and internal policies.
• Assist with oversight of internal controls, audits and external reporting to maintain transparency and integrity in financial operations.

Cross Functional Support:

• Support efforts to support the company’s growth and expansion strategies.

Data-Driven Financial Analysis:

• Use financial data and analytics to provide insights that drive business decisions and revenue generating strategies.
• Analyze financial performance metrics to identify areas for improvement and implement cost-saving or revenue-boosting initiatives.

Team Leadership & Development:

• Join a high-performing finance team, providing mentorship, guidance, and development opportunities.
• Foster a collaborative and results-driven culture both within the finance department and across all other company departments.
• Ensure that financial policies, systems, controls, and processes are optimized for effectiveness, efficiency and scalability.
• Strategic Partnerships & Growth:
• Partner with the Chief Accounting Officer to support the company’s long-term strategic planning, identifying financial implications and opportunities for growth.
• Daily Accounting Management:
• Manage and maintain general ledger accounts, including reconciliations and journal entries.
• Support the finance team in month-end and year-end closing processes.
• Identify areas for process improvement and implement best practices.

QUALIFICATIONS

Senior Accounting Leadership:

• 10+ years of progressive accounting experience, management experience and knowledge of U.S. public company internal control and reporting requirements.

Relevant Organizational Experience:

• Experience working in a publicly traded, consumer financial services company is desirable; strong GAAP knowledge and experience in application is key, public company reporting experience preferred. Experience in closing cadence, process improvement, systems conversions, internal controls, management of multi-location accounting functions, and credibility with auditors.
• Loan servicing accounting operations experience preferred

Team Leadership:

• Experience building and mentoring high-performing accounting and controls organizations of sufficient scale and size, ideally with experience leading global and geographically dispersed teams.

Transformation:

• Experience supporting a finance organization through significant transformation to support the strategic and operational needs of a growing business.

Education/Certification:

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting or comparable experience

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Driving Results:

• Acts to surpass team goals, seizing opportunities to extend the limits of what is possible; sets continually higher goals for themselves and the team that are ambitious but achievable.
• Identifies and acts on new opportunities that enable performance targets to be exceeded.
• Seeks new challenges and is energized by exceeding targets.
• Demonstrated ability to drive process improvement through simplification and/or automation as required, while leading with purpose through periods of change.

Collaborating and Influencing:

• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present effectively to all levels of management.
• Identifies all necessary stakeholders and connects with them to gain support or agreement.
• Engages others in open dialogue and adapts their own influence approach to different stakeholders in ways that address their interests or concerns.
• Anticipates emerging or potential conflicts among all stakeholders and takes steps to pre-empt them.
• Self-aware with the ability to form and foster organizational harmony and correct existing pain points and gaps.

Leading People:

• Hands-on operator with good communication skills, a results-oriented collaborative style and proven track record leading, delegating and growing teams. An effective strategy for working remotely with internal and external teams is a key success factor for this role.
• Identifies and leverages individual strengths within the team, unlocking potential.
• Communicates clearly and effectively; ability to bring immediate credibility to and influence both internal and external stakeholders.

Other Personal Characteristics:

• Hands-on, entrepreneurial style. Strong leadership, communication skills and drive.
• Highly intelligent, accomplished, low ego, solid team player.
• Ability to roll up sleeves and is action/result driven.
• High degree of integrity.
• Critical thinking with the ability to make sound decisions.
• Microsoft office experience with high efficiency in Excel