Group Financial Controller

Phrase is rebuilding its Group Finance function around an Agentic Finance operating model - one where AI agents carry the routine load of close, reconciliation, tax computation and compliance, and finance professionals shift their energy to design, control and judgement. The Group Financial Controller is central to that model. This is a senior technical accounting leadership role that owns group accounting, leads the group’s tax agenda and the adoption of transfer pricing policy, runs the external audit relationship, and holds the integrity of the balance sheet across all entities.

This is, first and foremost, a role for a qualified accountant with a formal finance and accounting background — that grounding is non-negotiable. On top of it, this is unambiguously an AI-native trajectory: we expect the holder to be a builder, someone who treats every recurring process in their remit as a candidate for agentic automation, who can specify, supervise and continuously improve the agents that run that automation, and who is energised — not threatened — by an operating model in which the human’s job is to design the system rather than to key the entries.

The role reports to the Director Group Finance and works alongside the management accounting, P2P and order-to-cash functions. It carries group-wide accountability for the technical accounting record, the tax and transfer pricing position, the audit deliverable, and balance sheet integrity across the group’s legal entities. The financial year runs February to January.

Group Accounting

• →Own the group consolidation and the integrity of the consolidated accounting record across all entities, including intercompany eliminations, FX translation and the group reporting calendar.
• →Lead the month-end and year-end close as a controlled, repeatable process, setting the standard for accuracy, timeliness and auditability.
• →Maintain and apply group accounting policy under the relevant reporting frameworks (including IFRS and local GAAP/HGB where applicable), and provide technical accounting judgement on non-routine transactions.
• →Produce reliable numbers for board packs and statutory reporting, and act as the technical authority that other finance functions rely on for treatment questions.

Tax Leadership & Adoption of Transfer Pricing Policy

• →Lead the group tax agenda with a primary focus on the Czech Republic — Phrase a.s. Is the group’s principal operating and selling entity, and Czech corporate income tax, VAT and the relationship with the Czech tax authority and CZ tax advisors are the first priority of the role.
• →Own the remaining group tax footprint across the other jurisdictions (corporate income tax, VAT and withholding tax for the German, UK, Irish, Spanish and US entities), coordinating local filings and managing the relevant external advisors.
• →Take over ownership of the group’s existing transfer pricing mechanism. A robust, profit-split transfer pricing model is already in place — this role is not about implementing or redesigning the model, but about owning it, applying it consistently and driving its further automation.
• →Embed the established transfer pricing policy into the day-to-day close — ensuring the IC matrix, intercompany pricing, calculations, settlements and supporting documentation are consistent, defensible and applied the same way across all entities.
• →Provide tax input on new structures, intercompany arrangements and material transactions, escalating policy-level decisions appropriately.

Audit

• →Own the external audit relationship and act as the primary point of contact for auditors across the group and its key statutory entities.
• →Plan and manage the audit deliverable end to end — the prepared-by-client schedules, evidence, reconciliations and technical papers — and hold the timetable.
• →Coordinate statutory accounts preparation across jurisdictions and resolve audit findings to closure.

Compliance & Balance Sheet Reconciliation

• →Own balance sheet integrity across the group: a complete, reconciled, substantiated balance sheet for every entity, every period.
• →Define and enforce the reconciliation framework — ownership, frequency, materiality thresholds, review and sign-off — and ensure aged or unexplained items are cleared, not carried.
• →Maintain the financial control environment and ensure compliance with statutory, tax and group policy obligations across all jurisdictions.
• →Strengthen controls continuously, with a bias toward preventative, automated controls over manual after-the-fact checking.

Building in an Agentic Finance Environment

This responsibility runs through all of the above — it is how the role is expected to operate, not a separate project. The Group Financial Controller is expected to own and advance the automation layer of every function they are responsible for.

• →Own the automation layer. Take accountability for any layer of automation across group accounting, tax, transfer pricing, audit support and reconciliation — not merely consuming tools, but designing how the work gets done by agents.
• →Design and supervise agents. Specify, test, supervise and continuously improve the AI agents that execute close, reconciliation, tax computation and compliance tasks, owning their accuracy and controls.
• →Codify judgement into rules. Translate accounting and tax judgement into the explicit rules, thresholds and review points that let agents operate safely at scale, and keep them current.

• →Operate as a builder, not just an operator. Treat every recurring manual process as a candidate for automation, and measure success by how much routine work is reliably executed by agents under proper control.
• →Maintain control and auditability. Ensure that an agent-run process is more controlled and more auditable than the manual one it replaces — full traceability, clear human review points, and evidence an auditor can follow.

Essential

• A qualified accountant (ACA / ACCA / CIMA or equivalent) with strong post-qualification experience in group accounting and consolidation.
• Experience with, or solid working knowledge of, IFRS as applied to group consolidation.
• Full professional English proficiency is a hard requirement — written and spoken — as the working language of the group.
• Demonstrable ownership of an external audit relationship and statutory reporting in a multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction group.
• Solid tax fluency across corporate income tax and indirect tax, with Czech tax experience (or the proven ability to lead a CZ-centred tax position) strongly preferred, and practical experience applying transfer pricing policy in an intercompany setting.
• A rigorous controls and balance sheet reconciliation mindset, with a track record of clean, substantiated balance sheets.
• Readiness to be a builder in an agentic finance environment — genuine enthusiasm for designing and supervising automated processes, and comfort owning the automation layer of the functions in scope.
• Clear, structured thinker able to codify accounting and tax judgement into explicit, repeatable rules.

Desirable

• Experience in a SaaS or technology group, and with NetSuite.
• Prior hands-on use of automation, scripting or AI tooling in a finance context — or clear evidence of the aptitude and appetite to learn it fast.
• Experience working across UK, EU and US reporting and tax environments.

This is a rare opportunity to lead the technical heart of an international finance function at the moment it is being re-engineered around AI agents. The right person will not only run group accounting, tax, audit and compliance to a high standard — they will help define what those functions look like when most of the routine execution is automated, and the controller’s job is to design, supervise and improve the system.

• Work experience in a successful and growing global SaaS company
• Be part of an international team in Europe, APAC, and the Americas
• Expert colleagues in their field who are determined to build the best localization platform on the market, creating a world where language never limits opportunity
• An agile work environment, where it is encouraged to take smart risks
• Take part in a culture full of trust, support and loyalty, where respectful and open feedback is valued, and diversity is fully embraced
• A positive, open-minded, and innovative atmosphere
• Support in your professional development and personal career goals

• 4 Company holidays additional to your regular holidays (1 day per quarter where the entire company is off to celebrate our achievements).
• In addition, the company also provides employees with a Christmas break to allow you to spend time with family and friends without use of your vacation allocation. 
• Your birthday is off because it is important to celebrate you as well.
• 2 Giveback days where you can support the local community, volunteer, and/or participate in charity events and activities.
• Professional and extensive onboarding.
• Enterprise Claude Licence
• Additional local benefits depending on the entity you're hired at, just ask your Talent Acquisition Partner

Phrase is committed to ensuring equal pay for equal work and work of equal value between women and men. Our aim is that our workforce will be truly representative of all sections of society and that each worker feels respected and able to give their best. The job requirements and salary range for this job have been established through a gender-neutral job evaluation and classification process. This process objectively assesses the skills, responsibility, effort and working conditions required for each job. This systematic approach ensures fair pay regardless of who performs the work. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of their sex, race or ethnicity, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation, gender identity or age.

We value and welcome different perspectives, experiences and backgrounds as we believe that these differences make our team even stronger on our mission of opening the door to global business by giving everybody access to the content they need in the language they speak