Vice President, Accounting & Financial Controlling, North America

About this Position

As Vice President, Accounting & Financial Controlling, North America, you will safeguard the quality and integrity of regional financial reporting while enabling better decisions, stronger performance, and sustainable value creation. You will connect local entities, business finance teams, GBS+, andglobal Finance functions.

• Lead the function:
  Provide strategic and operational leadership for North America Financial Controlling, Corporate Accounting, and Financial Reporting, with clear accountability for quality, timeliness, compliance, and business relevance.
• Own closing and reporting:
  Oversee internal and external period-end reporting, balance-sheet governance, reconciliations, key estimates and provisions, management reporting, and regional coordination of reporting submissions in accordance with IFRS, Henkel Corporate Standards, and applicable local requirements.
• Drive performance management:
  Translate complex financial information into clear insights, choices, and recommendations for senior regional and global stakeholders.
• Strengthen controls and assurance:
  Maintain an effective financial-control environment, coordinate external and internal audit activities, address findings sustainably, and reinforce accountability across end-to-end Finance processes.
• Lead M&A finance execution:
  Provide Finance leadership for due diligence, signing-to-close readiness, opening balance sheets, purchase accounting, net working capital settlements, post-close reporting, integration, legal-entity changes, and divestiture carve-outs while protecting business continuity.
• Partner across Henkel:
  Act as a trusted counterpart to regional business leaders, Group Accounting, Group Financial Controlling, Tax, Treasury, Legal, Corporate Audit, dX, GBS+, and local Finance teams. Represent North America in regional and global governance and transformation forums.
• Shape the operating model:
  Clarify roles, decision rights, controls, service levels, and escalation paths across retained Finance teams and GBS+. Ensure effective collaboration and continuous improvement across local, regional, and global interfaces.
• Transform the organization:
  Lead simplification, standardization, automation, and digital and AI adoption across accounting and controlling. Improve process speed, transparency, resilience, and insight without compromising control quality.
• Build future-ready teams:
  Develop leaders and technical experts, strengthen succession pipelines, create an inclusive high-performance culture, and ensure the organization has the capabilities required for future reporting, systems, and business-model changes.

• Finance leadership:
  Bachelor’sdegree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field required. MBA, CPA, or comparable advanced qualification strongly preferred. Minimum 15 years of progressive Finance leadership experience with substantial responsibility for accounting, controlling, reporting, governance, and business partnership.
• Technical depth:
  Strong command of IFRS, financial and management reporting, internal controls, audit,cost and performance accounting, balance-sheet governance, and complex judgmentareas. Experience in a multinational environment and with U.S. statutory or regulatory requirements is highly valuable.
• Enterprise performance perspective:
  Proven ability to lead planning, forecasting, performance reviews,and risk assessment, connect financial outcomes to operational drivers, and communicate concise, decision-oriented recommendations to executives.
• M&A and transformation:
  Demonstrated leadership in acquisitions, integrations, opening balance sheets, purchaseaccounting, systems and process transitions, and divestiture carve-outs. Track record of improving and standardizing complex processes while maintainingcontinuity and control.
• Digital and systems capability:
  Advanced experience with ERP, consolidation, reporting, analytics,and workflow tools. SAP experience is strongly preferred, together with apractical commitment to automation, data quality, AI-enabled productivity, andscalable reporting.
• Global matrix leadership:
  Abilityto influence across business units, legal entities, functions, regions, and Shared Service Centers. Skilled at balancing global standards with local business needs and establishing clear ownership across organizationalboundaries.
• Mindset:
  Leadwith an entrepreneurial, performance-driven, and growth-oriented mindset—anticipating opportunities, challenging the status quo, and…