Accounts Manager | Divisional Controlling – Al-Futtaim Group

Al-Futtaim Group is one of the largest privately held conglomerates in the region, with divisions spanning automotive, retail, financial services, and real estate — which means its Group Finance function has to maintain consistent accounting policy and reporting standards across a genuinely diverse set of businesses. This Accounts Manager role sits inside Divisional Controlling, supporting accounting policy, advisory, and reporting for one or more of those divisions.

The work centers on accounting policy and advisory support — helping divisional teams apply Group and divisional accounting policies correctly, supporting Group Finance during reviews and gap analyses, and playing a key role in drafting and maintaining Group accounting policies themselves. It’s a role that sits between technical accounting rigor and practical business advisory, translating policy into something divisional finance teams can actually apply consistently.

This suits a qualified or nearly-qualified accountant who enjoys the technical side of finance — policy interpretation, gap analysis, reporting consistency — but also wants exposure to how a large, multi-division group actually applies those standards in practice, rather than working in a purely theoretical or audit-only capacity.

Given Al-Futtaim’s scale and diversity of businesses, this is a role with genuine breadth: the accounting questions that come up in an automotive dealership look different from those in a retail or real estate division, and this role sits at the point where those differences get reconciled against a common Group standard.

Consistent accounting policy across a conglomerate the size of Al-Futtaim Group isn't a nice-to-have — it's what makes the Group's consolidated financial reporting reliable, auditable, and defensible to regulators, lenders, and ownership. When divisional accounting practices drift from Group policy, gaps show up during review that are expensive to unwind, and inconsistent application across divisions makes it harder for Group Finance to get a clean, comparable picture of performance across the business. This role's work on accounting policy and advisory directly reduces that risk — catching gaps before they compound, and helping divisions apply policy correctly the first time rather than needing costly restatement later. For a group with Al-Futtaim's diversity of business lines, the value of a strong Divisional Controlling function scales with the complexity of the group itself: the more different the businesses, the more valuable it is to have people who can hold a consistent standard across all of them.

Group-level controlling roles at a conglomerate like Al-Futtaim offer something narrower finance roles don't: visibility across multiple, genuinely different businesses rather than deep expertise in just one. That breadth is valuable for building a well-rounded finance career, since it exposes an accountant to how accounting policy plays out differently across automotive, retail, real estate, and financial services — experience that's hard to get inside a single-industry company. This kind of role also tends to be a strong stepping stone toward more senior Group Finance, FP&A, or Financial Controller positions, since it builds direct relationships with divisional finance leadership and a demonstrated ability to work at the policy level rather than just the transactional level. The gap-analysis and policy-drafting work in particular is a skill set that's valued at senior levels — CFOs and finance directors need people who can be trusted to interpret and apply policy correctly across a large organisation, and this role is a genuine training ground for that. For a qualified accountant looking to move from a technical or audit background into a more strategic Group Finance career, this is a well-positioned next step. It also builds a network of relationships across divisional finance teams that proves useful throughout a career at Al-Futtaim or within the wider regional finance community.

• Professional accounting qualification (ACCA, CPA, CA, or equivalent) or actively pursuing one
• Experience in financial reporting, accounting policy, or group controlling, ideally within a multi-division organisation
• Strong technical accounting knowledge and ability to interpret and apply policy consistently
• Experience supporting gap analysis or policy review processes
• Strong written communication skills for drafting accounting policy documentation
• Ability to work across multiple divisional finance teams with differing business contexts