Project Accountant

Discovery – Group Information Systems – Commercial Operations Project Accountant About Discovery

Discovery’s core purpose is to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. We seek out and invest in exceptional individuals who understand and support our core purpose, and whose own values align with those of Discovery. Our fast-paced and dynamic environment enables smart, self-driven people to be their best. As global thought leaders, Discovery is passionate about innovating in order to not only achieve financial success, but to ignite positive and meaningful change within our society.

The Project Accountant is responsible for providing strategic financial governance, project accounting oversight, portfolio financial reporting, and control assurance across the project portfolio. The role supports the PMO by managing the accounting and financial risk aspects of projects, ensuring audit-defensible financial management, accurate Capex and Opex reporting, robust governance controls, and reliable decision support. The role operates with a dual reporting line to the Finance Manager and the Head of PMO to ensure both financial discipline and portfolio delivery alignment.

• Provide oversight of Capex governance processes, including submission tracking, approval status monitoring, investment pipeline consolidation, WIP performance monitoring, and maintenance of Capex registers and audit trails.
• Review and assure business cases by validating completeness, financial robustness, ROI calculations, assumptions, stakeholder inputs, changes, and alignment to benefits realization frameworks.
• Prepare standardized portfolio reporting, financial analytics, variance analysis, executive dashboards, and reporting packs across relevant business-unit portfolios and cross-cutting Innovation Schedule reporting.
• Manage project costing, budgeting, forecasting, resource cost alignment, re-estimation activities, and monitoring of project cost performance against approved budgets.
• Establish and maintain governance, control, and audit-compliance practices, including validation of project structures, coding, project linking, exception identification, remediation tracking, and audit trail preparation.
• Administer and support project financial systems and tools, including Magic Orange and related reporting platforms, by reviewing project submissions, verifying data accuracy, resolving discrepancies, and monitoring system integrity.
• Design, document, optimize, and train stakeholders on key project finance processes, including programme start-up, ROI, benefits realization, Capex governance, quality assurance, and PPQA-aligned controls.
• Track benefits linked to approved business cases, monitor realized versus planned benefits, and report on the linkage between financial outputs, investment decisions, and strategic outcomes.

• Advanced Microsoft Excel, including financial modelling, reconciliations, variance analysis, and complex reporting templates.
• Power BI, dashboarding, and financial analytics capability.
• Understanding of project accounting, Capex and Opex reporting, WIP monitoring, budgeting, forecasting, and management reporting.
• Knowledge of business case assurance, ROI validation, benefits realization, and investment governance principles.
• Understanding of financial controls, audit trails, data integrity standards, project coding, devsheds, and project linking.
• Ability to work with PMO tools and project finance systems, including Magic Orange or equivalent platforms.
• Experience with Magic Orange, PMO governance frameworks, PPQA processes, portfolio management tools, workflow controls, and enterprise reporting environments.