Assistant Manager – Financial Reporting – GEMS Education

GEMS Education operates one of the largest private school networks in the UAE, and the finance function behind that network has to handle regulated, statutory reporting across a group with many subsidiaries. This Assistant Manager role sits inside that function, working directly under the VP of Financial Reporting to make sure the Group’s numbers are accurate, compliant, and ready to withstand scrutiny.

The work covers the technical core of group financial reporting: preparing and reviewing statutory accounts across subsidiaries, responding to queries raised by the audit and risk committee, and managing the audit and review process for multiple entities within the Group rather than a single company. It requires both technical accounting precision and the ability to explain numbers clearly to non-finance stakeholders, including senior governance committees.

This role suits a qualified or part-qualified accountant who enjoys the rigour of statutory reporting and group consolidation, and who can stay organised across multiple subsidiaries with different reporting timelines. Experience working with audit committees or in a group finance function, ideally within education, healthcare, or another regulated multi-entity sector, is strong preparation.

Based in Dubai, the role sits inside the finance function of a group operating dozens of schools across the UAE, giving an Assistant Manager genuine exposure to group-level financial complexity rarely available in a single-entity finance role.

Accurate, timely statutory reporting is not optional for a group the size of GEMS Education — it's the basis on which regulators, auditors, and the Group's own governance structures can trust the numbers behind every subsidiary. This Assistant Manager role is where that trust gets built in practice: getting statutory accounts right across multiple entities, and being able to answer an audit and risk committee's questions with confidence, directly protects the Group's compliance standing and its credibility with external auditors. Errors or delays at this level don't stay contained to one subsidiary — they can hold up Group-wide reporting timelines and create exactly the kind of governance risk that audit committees exist to catch. By managing audit and review matters across subsidiaries competently, this role also frees up senior finance leadership to focus on strategic questions rather than firefighting reporting issues, which matters for a group managing the financial complexity of running many schools under one structure.

Group financial reporting across multiple subsidiaries is exactly the kind of technically demanding, broad-exposure work that accelerates a finance career, because it forces fluency in consolidation, statutory compliance across entities, and audit committee communication all at once — skills that are typically siloed in smaller or single-entity finance roles. Direct exposure to an audit and risk committee at this level is genuinely valuable experience that many accountants don't get until much later in their careers, and it builds the kind of confidence and communication skill that distinguishes a future Financial Controller or Finance Director from someone who has only ever worked at transaction level. Working within GEMS Education's finance function also means learning how a large, regulated, multi-entity education group manages its reporting obligations, which is a strong credential for anyone aiming at a senior group finance role in education, healthcare, or another regulated sector. The breadth of subsidiaries involved also means faster exposure to varied accounting scenarios than a single entity would offer, compressing years of typical experience into a shorter, more concentrated period. For a part-qualified or newly qualified accountant, this is a genuinely strong platform for the next step toward a Finance Manager or Financial Controller title.

• Part-qualified or qualified accountant (ACCA, CA, CPA, or equivalent)
• Experience in statutory and regulatory financial reporting, ideally for a multi-entity group
• Comfortable responding directly to queries from audit and risk committee members
• Strong technical accounting knowledge and attention to detail across subsidiary accounts
• Organised approach to managing multiple audit and review timelines simultaneously
• Clear communicator able to explain financial detail to non-finance stakeholders
• Advanced Excel skills; experience with ERP or consolidation software is an advantage