Finance Controller

Ogilvy, part of WPP, has been creating impact for brands through iconic, culture-changing, value-driving ideas since the company was founded by David Ogilvy 75 years ago. It builds on that rich legacy through Borderless Creativity – innovating at the intersections of its advertising, public relations, relationship design, consulting, and health capabilities with experts collaborating seamlessly across over 120 offices in nearly 90 countries. Ogilvy currently ranks as the #1 global agency network for creative excellence and effectiveness by WARC, signifying its ability to deliver creative solutions that drive unreasonable impact for clients and communities. Ogilvy is a WPP company (NYSE: WPP). For more information, visit Ogilvy.com, and follow us on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook.

Ogilvy was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy. David created a culture that deeply respects and cares about its people and clients. Our mission is to inspire people and brands to make an impact and we are committed to attracting, growing, and retaining the best talent in the industry. 

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. For more information, visit WPP.com.

Accountable for the execution of financial reporting, accounting, and controls across. Ensures integrity, accuracy, and compliance of financial outputs while supporting effective decision-making and maintaining strong governance. Acts as the primary in-market controllership lead and key interface with Regional Controllership and GBS Finance.

• Deliver accurate and timely monthly, quarterly, and annual financial reporting, for statutory compliance and group reporting
• Ensure compliance with IFRS, group policies, and statutory requirements, including implementation of key accounting judgements and estimated in market
• Maintain robust balance sheet integrity, reconciliations, and substantiation
• Ensure audit readiness and management of external audit processes for market
• Execute SOX controls, testing, and remediation activities

• Partner with Market CFO to support performance analysis and decision-making through providing key inputs on financial actuals
• Provide clear commentary and variance analysis for financial actuals
• Input through financial actuals into budgeting, forecasting, and planning processes
• Maintain relationships with regulators, auditors, and external stakeholders
• Act as escalation point for accounting, reporting and other compliance issues, working with key functions (e.g., tax, legal) to resolve
• Where other activities are retained in market, assume oversight and sign off responsibilities for local tax and treasury activities, ensuring adherence to WPP policies, statutory and regulatory requirements and associated control requirements.

• Oversee delivery of Record-to-Report, transactional Finance and Controllership through GBS across market scope i.e., all countries and legal entities
• Monitor GBS service quality against SLAs and drive issue resolution
• Ensure implementation of global standards, policies, and frameworks
• Drive improvements in close cycle efficiency and reporting quality
• Support automation, standardisation, and process optimisation initiatives

• 10+ years of strong financial controllership experience, including time spent in Financial Controller role
• Qualified accountant, with experience in complex external audit environment and IFRS accounting complexity
• Experience operating in a complex multi-entity, multi-country controls environment (US SOX)
• Experience working directly with a Finance global business services function to deliver Record to Report, Transactional Finance, and Controllership and Reporting requirements
• Experience managing local statutory reporting and group reporting consolidation reporting requirements
• Experience in a multi-ledger ERP and systems environment
• Strong senior C-suite level stakeholder management skills
• Strong organisation and interpersonal skills
• Experience working in a Media & Creative or similar nature business (e.g., understanding the nuances of complex media revenue recognition)
• Experience being involved in a successful finance transformation programme is highly desirable
• User-level knowledge of Finance systems and processes (e.g., [insert ERP], SAP BFC)

Ogilvy celebrates its people. Fully. Enthusiastically. Unhesitatingly. We’ll empower you with the tools you’ll need to succeed. We’ll give you the autonomy to seek out new paths and better ways of doing things. We’ll support you with colleagues who are experts in their disciplines, drawn from across the Ogilvy network. And we’ll provide opportunities for you to do work of which you’ll be proud, with people you’ll be proud to call your teammates.