Senior Finance Team Lead - Africa Payroll

Who You'll Work With

You are someone who thrives in a high-performance environment, bringing a growth mindset and entrepreneurial spirit to tackle meaningful challenges that have a real impact.

In return for your drive, determination, and curiosity, we’ll provide the resources, mentorship, and opportunities to help you quickly broaden your expertise, grow into a well-rounded professional, and contribute to work that truly makes a difference.

When you join us, you will have:

• Continuous learning: Our learning and apprenticeship culture, backed by structured programs, is all about helping you grow while creating an environment where feedback is clear, actionable, and focused on your development. The real magic happens when you take the input from others to heart and embrace the fast-paced learning experience, owning your journey.
• A voice that matters: From day one, we value your ideas and contributions. You’ll make a tangible impact by offering innovative ideas and practical solutions, all while upholding our unwavering commitment to ethics and integrity. We not only encourage diverse perspectives, but they are critical in driving us toward the best possible outcomes.
• Global community: With colleagues across 65+ countries and over 100 different nationalities, our firm’s diversity fuels creativity and helps us come up with the best solutions. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from exceptional colleagues with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
• Exceptional benefits: In addition to a competitive salary (based on your location, experience, and skills), we offer a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, mental health, and vision coverage for you, your spouse/partner, and children.
  
  

Your Impact

You will play a pivotal role as a Senior Team Leader, overseeing and managing the day-to-day operations of the Payroll team. In this role, you will ensure accurate and timely payroll processing, compliance with statutory requirements, and effective team management. You will collaborate with internal departments, external vendors, and auditors to support payroll operations and drive continuous improvement initiatives.

You will be responsible for supervising and leading the payroll team to ensure timely and accurate processing of employee salaries, benefits, and statutory deductions, as well as reviewing and validating payroll inputs such as attendance, bonuses, incentives, and reimbursements.

You will ensure compliance with local labor laws, tax regulations, and company policies, while coordinating with Human Resources, Finance, and other stakeholders to resolve payroll-related issues. As part of your role, you will perform final reviews and approvals of payroll reports, pay slips, and bank files, maintain and audit payroll records to support internal controls and audits (e.g., ICFR compliance, SOX), and manage month-end and year-end payroll activities, including reports, reconciliations, and filings (PF, ESI, TDS, etc.).

You will also lead initiatives for payroll system enhancements, automation, and process improvements, prepare MIS reports and payroll dashboards for senior management, and provide guidance, training, and performance feedback to team members. Acting as a point of escalation for complex or sensitive payroll matters, you will play a critical role in resolving issues effectively and efficiently.

In addition to managing payroll operations, you will partner with functional leadership to identify challenges, gather necessary information, and develop practical solutions.

You will assess team members’ performance objectively, identify training needs, and organize appropriate development programs. Regularly providing constructive feedback, you will foster a culture of continuous improvement and resolve conflicts between team members with professionalism and efficiency.

This role is based in our Chennai & Gurugram offices, where you will be part of our Global Payroll team, working in close coordination with office accounting, firm colleagues, and the applications support team.

Your Qualifications and Skills

• Educational background in Commerce or Business Administration, with a Master's degree preferred; a Bachelor's degree in Finance or Accounting is required
• 8+ years of experience in Africa payroll in corporate and/or professional services environments
• Minimum of 8+ years of relevant payroll experience, including at least 3 years of experience leading a team of 5 or more members within a multinational shared services environment
• Hands-on experience in payroll transformation projects, including system implementation/testing, payroll comparison, parallel runs, data validation, and ensuring data accuracy, integrity, and proper archival
• Proficiency in payroll software (e.g., SAP, Oracle, ADP, etc.) and MS Excel
• Exposure to managing global clients and working in a cross-functional, multicultural environment
• Strong knowledge of payroll processes, labor laws, and statutory compliance
• Exceptional attention to detail and a high degree of accuracy
• Excellent organizational and problem-solving skills
• Strong leadership and team management capabilities
• Ability to handle confidential information with integrity