Accounts Manager | Divisional Controlling – Al-Futtaim Group

Al-Futtaim Group operates across automotive, retail, financial services, and real estate, which makes divisional controlling a genuinely broad remit rather than a single-business-unit finance job. This Accounts Manager role sits inside Group Finance, working on accounting policy, advisory, and the reporting discipline that keeps a conglomerate this diversified reconciled at group level.

The core of the job is policy and control: providing support to Group and Divisional teams on accounting policy questions, participating in reviews and gap analysis against Group Accounting Policies, and helping draft or refine those policies as the business evolves. This is less transactional accounting and more the governance layer that sits above it – making sure every division applies accounting treatment consistently.

Because Al-Futtaim’s divisions operate quite differently from each other, this role requires translating group-level policy into something that makes practical sense for a retail division one day and an automotive or real estate division the next, which keeps the work varied and genuinely technical.

Suits a qualified or part-qualified accountant with strong technical accounting knowledge who enjoys policy and governance work as much as transactional accounting, and who wants exposure to a genuinely diversified group rather than a single industry.

Consistent accounting policy across a conglomerate as diversified as Al-Futtaim Group is what makes group-level financial statements trustworthy in the first place - without it, consolidated reporting becomes a reconciliation exercise rather than a genuine reflection of performance. This Accounts Manager role directly protects that integrity, and by extension protects the credibility of financial reporting that senior leadership, auditors, and potentially external stakeholders rely on. Because the role also supports divisional teams directly, the quality of that support shapes how quickly and accurately individual divisions can close their books and make locally informed decisions, without waiting on group-level corrections after the fact. In a group spanning automotive, retail, financial services, and real estate, the gap analysis and policy work this role performs also functions as an early-warning system - catching divergent accounting treatment before it becomes a bigger reporting or compliance problem at year end. Ultimately, the rigor this role brings to financial analysis and reporting is part of what allows leadership to make confident, well-informed decisions rather than acting on incomplete or unreliable numbers.

Divisional controlling experience across a genuinely diversified group like Al-Futtaim is rare and valuable, because it exposes an accountant to how different industries apply the same accounting framework in practice - retail revenue recognition looks different from automotive or real estate, and understanding all three builds a technical breadth that single-industry roles simply can't offer. Policy and governance work specifically is also the track record that senior finance and controllership roles are built on - it demonstrates the kind of technical judgement and cross-business communication that pure transactional accounting doesn't always showcase. For someone targeting a Group Financial Controller, Head of Group Reporting, or similar senior finance role in the future, this kind of divisional exposure at a large private group is close to ideal preparation. Al-Futtaim's scale in the UAE and wider region also means real internal mobility for strong performers - lateral moves into specific divisions or upward moves into more senior group finance roles are both realistic paths from a role like this one. Finance professionals who build a track record like this are also well placed to pursue further professional qualifications alongside the role, strengthening long-term options across the region's broader finance job market. That combination of hands-on experience and a recognised employer name is exactly what hiring managers look for when evaluating a candidate for the next step up.

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting or Finance; professional qualification (ACCA, CPA, CA or equivalent) preferred
• Experience in group/divisional accounting, financial reporting, or accounting policy
• Strong technical knowledge of accounting standards (IFRS or equivalent)
• Experience conducting gap analysis or policy reviews across business units
• Ability to communicate technical accounting requirements clearly to divisional finance teams
• Comfort working across multiple, operationally distinct business divisions