Group Financial Controller

About Us

Founded in Dubai only 5 short years ago, and we're already growing internationally.

Humantra is a global wellness brand on a mission to help people achieve optimal hydration and unlock their best daily performance.

We believe hydration is the most overlooked foundation of health, energy, and mental clarity. Our electrolyte solutions are designed to support modern lifestyles - whether that's training, travelling, working, or simply getting through a busy day.

The Opportunity

Humantra is scaling rapidly across international markets, and our finance function is evolving with it. What began as a DTC brand is now a multi-entity, multi-market, multi-channel group, with subscription, wholesale and retail businesses operating side by side.

We are looking for a Group Financial Controller to build the controls, reporting and compliance infrastructure that will support our next phase of growth. Reporting to the Finance Director, you will own the group close and consolidation, statutory reporting and audit, tax compliance across multiple regions, balance sheet integrity, the group control framework and day-to-day treasury execution.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You will lead and develop the transactional finance team, improve the speed and quality of financial reporting, and partner closely with the Finance Director, leadership team and colleagues across the business.

You will play a central role in shaping how finance operates as Humantra grows, creating scalable processes, strengthening financial discipline and giving the business the insight it needs to make confident decisions. This is an opportunity to build a finance function that can support continued international growth without losing pace or entrepreneurial energy.

The role will suit someone who enjoys building structure in a fast-moving environment, is comfortable operating at both strategic and detailed levels, and wants to have a visible impact on a growing international business.

What you'll own

Group Close, Consolidation & Reporting

• Lead the month-end and year-end close across every group entity, owning the timetable, quality, review process and final sign-off.

• Shorten the close cycle so the business has reliable management information early enough in the month to support decisions. This will be one of your first measurable wins.

• Manage the group consolidation, including intercompany matching and eliminations, foreign-currency translation and the impact of FX movements through reserves.

• Deliver monthly management accounts and balance-sheet review packs, with clear commentary explaining what has changed, why it has changed and what action may be required.

• Support the Finance Director with board and investor reporting, ensuring that the underlying numbers, controls and explanations are robust.

Balance Sheet Integrity & Financial Control

• Take ownership of balance-sheet integrity across the group, ensuring every entity and account is reconciled, reviewed and supported by appropriate evidence.

• Manage accruals, prepayments, provisions and the fixed-asset register, with clear ownership and review controls.

• Ensure the accuracy of stock and cost of goods sold by reconciling warehouse systems, 3PL records and the general ledger.

• Maintain landed-cost calculations that properly reflect FOB costs, freight, duty and inbound handling, and investigate unexplained movements.

• Design, document and maintain the group control framework, including delegated authority, approval matrices, segregation of duties and process documentation that can withstand external scrutiny.

• Establish a regular process for testing controls, tracking weaknesses and driving remediation across the group.

Statutory Reporting, Audit & Tax

• Lead the preparation of statutory financial statements for every group entity and manage the annual audit from planning through to close-out, including timetables, prepared-by-client schedules, auditor relationships and resolution of outstanding points.

• Act as the group’s technical accounting authority for revenue recognition, including subscription and deferred revenue, stock and provisioning, leases and going concern. Maintain clear accounting policies and ensure they are applied consistently across entities.

• Lead the group’s transition to the relevant FRS 102 & IFRS changes, planning the implementation properly and embedding the new requirements into processes, systems and reporting.

• Oversee indirect tax across the group, including UK VAT, EU VAT and OSS, and UAE VAT. Manage corporation tax, deferred tax and UAE corporate tax compliance with external advisers, including transfer-pricing documentation for related-party flows.

• Lead the group’s e-invoicing readiness across its markets, ensuring the business is prepared for relevant mandates in the UAE and Germany.

• Manage external advisers across audit, accounting, tax and legal, holding them accountable for scope, fees, quality and delivery.

Treasury, Cash & Working Capital

• Lead day-to-day treasury execution across UK and UAE banking relationships, including cash positioning, cash placement, FX exposure and payment authorisation, within a policy framework agreed with the Finance Director.

• Drive improvements in working capital by reducing aged debt and unexplained balances, while overseeing collections and credit control, including retail deductions, disputes and credit limits.

• Maintain disciplined supplier payment processes so suppliers are paid accurately and on time, without needing to chase the business.

Systems, Data & Automation

• Lead the finance side of the systems roadmap across Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Shopify, Plus, Precoro, Cercli and Power BI.

• Establish robust master-data and SKU governance, improve warehouse-to-ERP integration, strengthen bank feeds and replace manual spreadsheet reconciliations with reliable automated processes.

• Fix problems upstream. Where finance repeatedly corrects the same issue, work with the team that owns the process to redesign it rather than creating another reconciliation.

• Identify opportunities to use automation and AI to make finance processes faster, more accurate and more effective, while preserving appropriate human judgement, review, access controls and sign-off.

Leadership & Team

• Lead, coach and develop the transactional finance team, building the structure, capability and capacity needed to support the group’s continued growth.

• Recruit and onboard new team members as the function expands, creating clear roles, ownership and development plans.

• Set clear standards for accuracy, timeliness, accountability and service. Give direct feedback early and with care.

• Build a function where high standards are understood, owned and consistently delivered, rather than maintained through constant checking.

• Create clear operating rhythms across the team, including priorities, review points, performance conversations and continuous improvement.

• Act as a trusted partner to leaders across the business, explaining financial matters clearly and helping non-finance stakeholders make better decisions.

Skills & behaviours

Must haves:

• ACA, ACCA or CIMA qualified, with strong post-qualification experience and genuine technical depth.

• Proven experience as a Financial Controller, Group Financial Controller or Head of Financial Control in a multi-entity business, ideally with international entities and foreign currency.

• Demonstrable ownership of group consolidation, statutory accounts and the external audit process across multiple legal entities.

• Strong UK GAAP (FRS 102) & IFRS knowledge

• Deep experience of financial control frameworks - reconciliation programmes, segregation of duties, delegation of authority, and documenting controls so that they survive you.

• Real strength in cash, working capital and the balance sheet, not just the P&L.

• Experience of inventory and landed cost accounting in a physical product business.

• Proven experience leading and developing a finance team, including hiring.

• Experience within consumer, DTC, omni-channel, FMCG, health & wellness or a similar brand-led business.

Ideal:

• Experience of UAE and UK entities together, and of UAE corporate tax, VAT and transfer pricing.

• Exposure to EU VAT and OSS, or to e-invoicing mandates in any jurisdiction.

• Experience with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Shopify, Precoro or Power BI.

• Experience of 3PL and multi-site stock reconciliation.

• A first-mover record: having built a control environment somewhere it did not previously exist.

• Practice-trained, with subsequent industry experience.

• A hands-on, proactive approach.

• Commercially minded, comfortable holding your own in a commercial debate and connecting financial control directly to company performance.

• Pragmatic and solutions-focused, with a bias towards simple processes that enable the business rather than bureaucracy that slows it down.

• Strong decision making under pressure, comfortable operating with pace, change and ambiguity.

• Radical Ownership: when something is wrong, you fix it - you don't route it.

Why Join Humantra?

Joining Humantra means real ownership and impact from day one. It's that simple.

In every role you'll work closely with our lean, high-performing team that values impact, pace, and collaboration. We're looking for those who never settle for the status-quo to help build the engine to power our next stage of growth.

Our HuMANTRA's

• Impact over Ego

• Togetherness

• Radical Ownership

• Proper Conversations

• Wired for Growth

Benefits

• Premium Private Healthcare Insurance

• Monthly wellness perk (gym, supplements, etc.)

• 25 days annual leave + your birthday off!

• 1 Week 'Work from Anywhere' per year

• Plus more!