Booking Holdings Romania - Finance Manager

Booking Holdings Romania is a Center of Excellence based in Bucharest, Romania and was created to support the increasing business demands of the Booking Holdings Brands. The Center of Excellence provides access to specialized and highly skilled talent, leading industry best practices, and collaboration opportunities across all of our Brands.

As part of our Booking Holdings Romania team, you will have the opportunity to be a part of the world’s leading provider of online travel, with a mission of making it easier for everyone to experience the world through five-primary consumer facing brands: Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, KAYAK and OpenTable.

Role Description

Booking Holdings is looking for an experienced professional to lead the Finance and Accounting function at our delivery center in Bucharest, Romania. Booking Holdings is building technical expertise within these centers, referred to as ‘Centers of Excellence (COE)’ to serve various brands and entities within the Holding portfolio. The leadership role will largely centered around maintaining and overseeing key accounting and finance activities. The role will involve working closely with the COE Leader and other corporate stakeholders (HR, Program Management etc.) in executing and documenting the accounting, internal controls, planning, and forecasting activities to achieve COE goals. 

The focus is to continue to lead the operations and maturity of the accounting system at the center, maintain comprehensive financial reporting governance processes, and actively ensure all policies, procedures, controls, and systems facilitate compliance and scaling of the Booking Holdings’ Bucharest COE.

Key Job Responsibilities And Duties

Lead All Accounting and Finance Activities

• Generating statutory financial statements, creating budgets, bookkeeping ledgers, business plans and group financial reporting

• Filing and submitting tax returns and other financial obligations (e.g. VAT, WHT, CIT, SFS etc.)

• Ensure proper bookkeeping and accounting to any tax incentive in accordance with local laws and guidelines, company policies and compliance requirements; stay up to date on financial reporting law and best practices

• Complete year-end reporting and regular audits (external financial audit, tax audits)

• Establish internal controls and guidelines for accounting transaction, ensuring proper governance for finance SOP and processes

• Collaborates with senior stakeholders in Finance and CoE Leadership Team for all finance and compliance related matters

• Lead the preparation of the financial forecasts and budgets for CoE Romania, including the identification and quantification of opportunities and risks

• Proactively identify business drivers to support the budget and forecast assumption

• Facilitate the negotiation of finance services agreements 

• Support requests and projects from colleagues and management, contributing with information for the business case

•  Lead and motivate the team by including appropriate coaching, mentoring and feedback sessions. Ensure individual team member’s objectives are in alignment with the team roadmap.

• Prepare and conduct Bi-annual performance reviews and keep track of progress during the year

• Responsible to identify and hire new talented individuals to support the team objectives

  Monitor Day-To-Day Finance Operations

• Oversee the daily management of the Center of Excellence which includes the interaction with the business partners, finance colleagues, and the direct supervision of the COE finance team, ensuring all objectives for finance are realized

• Prepare standard, ad hoc reporting, and key performance indicators (KPIs) each period for the business and finance management

• Review and monitor activities to identify trends and problem areas, reporting on risks and propose and implement corrective action or new approaches

• Drive continuous improvement and simplification efforts in reporting, financial processes, and tools through automation and/or standardization

• Approval of purchases to be in line with the company approved budget

• Oversee and enhance information provided to leadership for business decisions

• Coordinate with corporate and regional Tax, Accounting, Finance, FP&A, Treasury and Audit teams

Role Qualifications And Requirements

• CPA, CA or equivalent certification (e.g. ACCA)

• Minimum 3 years in a leadership role, managing a team

• Proven knowledge of bookkeeping and accounting principles, practices, standards, laws and regulations – particularly laws or regulations specific to Romanian Finance and Accounting law

• Strong commercial and decision support experience in different aspects of financial management including financial planning and analyses, forecasting, and management reporting and analytics

• Strong skills in reporting, budgeting, bookkeeping, tax planning

• Highly developed skills in external and internal financial reporting, application of accounting principles and tax regulations, financial decision making and internal control

• Strong understanding of and experience with process mapping and process improvement

• Ability to motivate and develop others, including working thought other teams and managers

• Strong analytical, problem solving and communication skills, and attention to detail

• Self-Motivated and Resourceful: takes initiatives on projects, must be comfortable working with clients directly 

• Collaborative: ability to work across teams, departments, multiple projects 

• Proficiency in English

If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.