About Palladium:

Palladium is a global leader in the design, development, and delivery of Positive Impact - the intentional creation of enduring social and economic value.

We work with governments, businesses, and investors to solve the world's most pressing challenges.

With a team of more than 3,000 employees operating in over 90 countries and a global network of more than 35,000 experts, we help improve economies, societies, and, most importantly, people's lives.

Role Overview:

The Finance Manager serves as the day-today finance leader for Palladium India, responsible for ensuring strong financial control, accurate reporting, financial planning and analysis, project finance oversight, forecasting, compliance, and team leadership.

The role works closely with the Fractional Finance Director, India CEO and Business Leaders to provide timely, accurate and insightful financial information to support strategic decision-making, revenue growth, profitability and cash management.

The Finance Manager will drive financial discipline across projects and corporate operations while strengthening finance processes, controls, systems and team capability.

This position offers a clear development pathway towards future senior finance leadership responsibilities.

Location: Mumbai/Pune.

Key Responsibilities:

- Lead the annual budgeting and business planning process.

- Develop monthly, quarterly and annual forecasts, including rolling forecasts and scenario analyses.

- Monitor financial performance against budget and forecast targets and conduct variance analysis.

- Provide actionable recommendations to management to support commercial and operational decision-making.

- Support strategic planning initiatives through financial modelling and business case development.

- Identify key financial risks and opportunities and incorporate them into forecasts and plans.

- Produce accurate and timely month-end flash reports, management accounts and financial reporting packs.

- Develop and maintain dashboards, KPIs and financial performance metrics.

- Prepare monthly, quarterly and annual management reports and presentations.

- Ensure accuracy, integrity and reliability of financial and operational data.

- Deliver reporting that supports revenue growth, EBITDA improvement and operational efficiency.

- Monitor project profitability and financial performance across the portfolio.

- Review project budgets, forecasts, expenditures, cash flows, margins and cost performance.

- Identify loss-making, underperforming or high-risk projects and recommend corrective actions.

- Partner with Project Managers to improve project forecasting accuracy and commercial outcomes.

- Support project funding decisions, business development initiatives and investment evaluations.

- Oversee day-to-day accounting operations, including general ledger management and bookkeeping.

- Supervise Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll and Treasury activities.

- Manage month-end and year-end close activities and review balance sheet reconciliations.

- Ensure compliance with accounting standards, group policies and internal control requirements.

- Maintain effective financial governance and control frameworks.

- Drive cash flow forecasting and working capital optimization.

- Monitor billing, collections, receivables ageing and cash conversion.

- Partner with project teams and business leaders to improve debtor recovery.

- Identify and implement opportunities to improve cash collection performance.

- Support treasury activities and effective liquidity management across the business.

- Ensure compliance with Indian statutory, taxation, regulatory and corporate reporting requirements.

- Coordinate internal and external audits, including corporate, donor, project and compliance audits.

- Maintain and strengthen financial controls and risk management processes.

- Ensure adherence to Palladium policies, procedures and approval frameworks.

- Monitor and mitigate financial, commercial and operational risks.

- Lead, coach and develop the India Finance team.

- Establish a culture of accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement.

- Build capability across finance functions including AP, AR, Payroll and Financial Reporting.

- Drive process optimization, automation and finance transformation initiatives.

- Act as a trusted finance business partner to operational and business leaders.

Required Qualifications and Experience:

- Bachelors degree in finance, Accounting, Commerce, Economics or related discipline.

- Chartered Accountant (CA) strongly preferred; CPA, CMA, MBA Finance or equivalent qualification desirable.

- Minimum 10 years of progressive finance experience.

- Experience managing accounting operations, forecasting, budgeting, reporting, audit and compliance processes.

- Previous experience leading and developing a finance team.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion:

Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do.

We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success, and good practice.

Should you require any adjustments or accommodation to be made due to a disability, or you are a neurodivergent individual or for any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com and we will be in touch to discuss.

Safeguarding:

We define Safeguarding as the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm.

We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse.

All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.