SEA Finance Director (Chinese-speaking)

Location: On-site in KL

Salary: Up to MYR 33,000/month + performance bonus

This position leads all financial governance, planning, transformation, and finance operations across Southeast Asia. The role ensures strong financial discipline, regulatory compliance, and alignment with global finance standards, while acting as a key strategic partner to the Regional President and country leadership teams.

A major initial mandate will be to design and establish a regional Finance Shared Service Centre (SSC) in Kuala Lumpur from the ground up. The role will define the target operating model, determine which finance activities should be centralized versus retained locally, develop the manpower and transition plan, standardize regional processes and controls, and oversee the migration of activities into the new SSC.

Job Description

Regional Financial Control & Governance

• Lead accounting, controllership, and financial operations across the region.
• Establish strong financial controls, policies, approval structures, and governance frameworks.
• Ensure compliance with local statutory requirements and Group accounting standards.

Finance Shared Service Centre Setup & Transformation

• Lead the end-to-end setup of the regional Finance SSC in Kuala Lumpur.
• Define the target operating model, process scope, governance structure, implementation roadmap, and migration strategy.
• Determine which activities should be centralized versus retained within local finance teams.
• Develop the SSC organization and manpower plan, including hiring requirements and restructuring of local finance resources.
• Define SLAs, KPIs, controls, SOPs, and service-delivery standards.
• Lead process mapping, knowledge transfer, migration, stabilization, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure business continuity and strong controls throughout the transition.
• Partner with country finance, HR, IT, and operations to manage change and stakeholder alignment.

ERP & Finance Systems Transformation

• Assess the existing ERP and finance-system landscape across Southeast Asia.
• Advise management on the appropriate sequencing of SSC implementation, process standardization, and ERP transformation.
• Support regional ERP standardization, automation, and finance-system improvement initiatives.

Strategic Business Partnering

• Act as the key finance advisor to the Regional President and country leadership teams.
• Provide financial and commercial insights on business performance, investments, expansion, and resource allocation.
• Partner commercial, manufacturing, and operational leaders to improve profitability and business performance.
• Support new entity setup, restructuring, acquisitions, and post-acquisition integration.

Financial Planning & Performance Management

• Lead the regional 2027 budgeting process and subsequent budgeting, forecasting, and long-term planning cycles.
• Consolidate and challenge country submissions and assumptions.
• Establish structured performance reviews and identify risks, gaps, and improvement opportunities.
• Present actionable financial insights and recommendations to senior leadership.

Project Financing & Investment Oversight

• Evaluate major regional investments, manufacturing projects, and expansion initiatives.
• Develop and review financial models, business cases, ROI assessments, and cash-flow projections.
• Support due diligence, capital allocation, funding decisions, and project profitability reviews.

Risk, Reporting & Compliance

• Identify and mitigate financial, operational, compliance, and liquidity risks.
• Ensure effective internal controls across country teams and the future SSC.
• Manage monthly, quarterly, and annual Group reporting requirements.
• Oversee statutory reporting, tax, audit, and regulatory compliance across the region.

Process Standardization & Integration

• Standardize finance processes, policies, controls, and ways of working across countries.
• Integrate new entities and acquisitions into Group finance practices.
• Drive finance transformation across fragmented or immature operating environments.

Job Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Finance, Accounting, or a related field; professional qualifications such as ACCA, CPA, CIMA, CA, or equivalent are strongly preferred.
• Proven experience leading finance across multiple countries in Southeast Asia or the broader APAC region.
• Direct experience setting up, building, migrating a Finance Shared Service Centre or centralized finance organization.
• Strong understanding of SSC design , including target operating models, process scope, manpower planning, organizational structure, migration strategy, SLAs/KPIs, governance, and stabilization.
• Proven experience with ERP implementation, migration, or finance-system standardization; SAP exposure is highly advantageous.
• Proven ability to act as a strategic business partner to senior leadership, including advising on investments, resource allocation, business cases, and growth initiatives.
• Experience supporting manufacturing operations , plant finance, costing, capex, supply chain, and project-based industrial businesses .
• Fluency in Mandarin Chinese , as the role requires frequent communication with stakeholders in Taiwan.
• Solid understanding of regulatory and compliance environments across Southeast Asia.
• Comfortable operating hands-on within a complex, evolving, and currently fragmented multi-country finance environment.
• Able to work effectively in a matrix structure with direct reporting to regional business leadership and close alignment with Group Finance HQ.

Nice to Have

• Experience leading both transformation projects and business-as-usual regional finance simultaneously.
• Experience managing finance organizations through significant organizational change, restructuring, or rapid growth.
• Demonstrated success implementing financial controls, automation, process improvements, and productivity initiatives.
• Strong understanding of working-capital optimization, treasury centralization, and finance operating-model design.
• Excellent analytical and strategic thinking abilities.
• Ability to convey complex financial concepts and transformation recommendations clearly to senior audiences.
• Strong stakeholder-management skills across different countries, cultures, and organizational levels.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to convert financial data into actionable commercial and investment insights.
• Adaptability to fast-paced, growth-driven, and ambiguous environments.