Senior Accountant - Valuation Oversight

An excellent opportunity to join us as a Senior Accountant to join our investments team within finance. This is an exciting time to join us as we look to significantly grow our illiquid asset capabilities and investment mandates.

Salary and benefits: Up to £75,000, plus 16% bonus up to 32%, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more
Job Type: Permanent
Location and flexible working: Edinburgh, Wythall, Telford.
Closing Date: 6 June 2023

We are looking for a highly motivated valuation oversight Senior Accountant to join our investments team within finance to support the development of our key valuation oversight controls over illiquid assets. This is an exciting time for the organisation as it is looking to significantly grow its illiquid asset capabilities and investment mandates. This role will present the right candidate with the opportunity to shape the valuation oversight function within finance during a period of change and growth. The incumbent will be critical to helping create a robust framework for the oversight and challenge of illiquid asset valuation from external asset managers.

Who are we?
We want to be the best place that any of our 6,800 colleagues have ever worked.
We're the UK's largest long-term savings and retirement business. We offer our 13 million customers products across our market-leading brands, including Standard Life, SunLife and ReAssure, with c.£310 billion of assets under administration. We're a FTSE 100 organisation that is tackling key issues such as transitioning our portfolio to net zero by 2050, and we're not done yet.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- This role will be primarily responsible for the direct oversight of valuations, valuation oversight controls and delivery of valuation MI into Committees.
- Design and development of a robust valuation oversight framework & associated controls and processes which serve to robustly challenge illiquid asset valuation
- Co-ordinate and perform assurance work over processes at outsourced service providers (OSPs)
- Build and interrogate valuation model checks and controls as required.
- Opine on reasonableness of investment valuations
- Documentation of methodologies, reviews and conclusions covering illiquid assets valuations.
- Opportunity to work with various stakeholders, internal & external to business e.g. various functions within internal asset management teams & external asset managers
- Support the team with governance papers for on-boarding new illiquid assets
- Key point of contact for internal and external audit in this area
- Consider the impact of complex business-driven projects on asset valuation processes. Working within tight timescales & challenging resources
- Keep abreast of all technical/regulatory changes in respect of illiquid investments
- This role will have some people management responsibilities so will involve leading a small team and supporting development of people

EXPERIENCE
- Appropriate professional qualification in accountancy or recognised investments qualification
- Experience working in large financial services and/ or asset management business
- Valuation experience of hard to price/ illiquid assets
- Proven track record of developing and embedding robust valuation processes or oversight controls over illiquid/ hard to price assets
- Understanding of different investment valuation techniques and best practices.
- Confident, self-starter with experience of major change
- Knowledge and experience of investment valuation, accounting & reporting
- Strong analytical and report writing skills
We want to hire the whole version of you.
We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we've advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we'd love to hear from you.
If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best.
Find out more about #LifeAtPhoenix
- Guide for Candidates: thephoenixgroup.pagetiger.com/guideforcandidates
- Find or get answers from our colleagues: www.thephoenixgroup.com/careers/talk-to-us
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We value diversity in our workforce and welcome enquiries from everyone.