Tax Infrastructure Lead

The Global Tax function at Standard Chartered Bank is seeking a dynamic, highly capable individual to play a key role in our multi-year strategic transformation. 

The Executive Director – Tax Infrastructure will lead the delivery, governance and continuous improvement of the global tax change agenda from the India Global Capability Centre (GCC). Reporting to the Global Process Owner for Tax, the role will help execute the vision of building a tax function that is future-ready, well-controlled and aligned to the firm’s strategy.  This role owns the medium-term change portfolio and process excellence for Tax, partnering closely with the bank’s Tax Change, Country Tax, Finance Change, Technology and business stakeholders to drive efficiency, control and scalability.

Strategy
Strategy and portfolio ownership 
•    Contribute to defining and maintaining the multi year change strategy and roadmap for the global tax function (process, data, technology, control environment, operating model).
•    Translate tax and regulatory developments, business growth, finance transformation needs and internal pain points into a coherent pipeline of change initiatives.
•    Provide input and suitable challenge to ensure clear prioritization, funding, resourcing and alignment to business & regulatory priorities. 
•    Own the implementation of new tax applications and technology into the Tax CoE
•    Partner with Tax Change and Finance Change teams to integrate tax requirements into major programs (e.g. ERP migrations, data lake builds, core banking upgrades), providing SME input on tax data/process impact

Business
Change delivery and governance
•    Ensure delivery the medium-term tax change roadmap (process enhancements, system upgrades, data integrations, control strengthening, new applications roll-out)
•    Implement and stabilise new or enhanced tax processes, systems (e.g. tax engines, compliance platforms, data warehouses) and controls.
•    Establish and chair relevant governance forums for Book of Work (steerco, design authority, demand management), ensuring decisions, risks and dependencies are managed transparently.
•    Implement and enforce change standards, methodologies and artefacts for the tax function (business cases, requirements, design, testing, rollout, benefits tracking).
•    Drive adoption of tax technology (new applications, engines, automation, analytics/AI) within Tax CoE, underpinned by world-class processes that are standardised and scalable.

Processes
Process, data and control excellence
•    Drive end to end process standardization and/or re design for key tax processes (corporate planning, provisioning, reporting, direct & indirect tax reporting, FATCA & CRS Reporting) to improve efficiency, control and scalability.
•    Conduct regular process health assessments, benchmarking against global peers, and drive end-to-end redesigns for key domains.
•    Foster a CI culture across the diverse, multi-country tax team via training, tools (e.g. process mining, RPA readiness) and cross-functional workshops, addressing behavioral change challenges during operating model evolution
•    Partner with Finance, Data and Technology teams to define target tax data models, data quality requirements and lineage, ensuring that upstream change (ERP, GL, sub ledgers, trading systems) meets tax needs.
•    Strengthen the tax control framework by embedding robust preventive and detective controls, reconciliations, and automated checks into redesigned processes and systems.

Technology and digitization
•    Shape the tax technology strategy, including selection and implementation of tax engines, workflow tools, RPA, analytics/AI solutions and e filing/compliance platforms.
•    Provide change implementation support for key technology programs impacting tax (Finance ERP upgrades, source system changes, data lake initiatives), ensuring tax requirements are captured early and tested thoroughly.
•    Promote adoption and use of AI, data analytics and visualization across Tax; contribute to or lead in defining Tax’s Data, AI & Technology strategy.

Tax applications management, data feeds & reporting
•    Own the lifecycle management of tax applications (tax engines, tax provisioning tools, tax data products) used in Tax CoE, including vendor selection, upgrades, configuration & decommissioning.
•    Define, govern and enhance underlying data feeds from upstream systems to ensure completeness, accuracy, timeliness and reconciliations
•    Drive tax reporting excellence, embedding automated controls, exception handling and audit trails into tax applications; enable advanced outputs while ensuring availability, scalability and inter-operability

People & Talent
Stakeholder management and leadership
•    Act as the primary change interface between GPO and senior stakeholders in Finance, Business, Risk, Legal, Technology and Operations.
•    Influence and challenge senior stakeholders to ensure tax implications are built into major business and finance initiatives (new products, locations, legal entity restructures, M&A).
•    Build, lead and develop a high performing global Change Implementation & Service Delivery team (project managers, business analysts, process and data SMEs, applications support), fostering a culture of continuous improvement, accountability and collaboration.

Team leadership
•    Build/lead a high-performing India-based team (PMs, analysts, process SMEs, tax applications management), promoting collaboration in a diverse, global context via tools like team assessments for alignment.
•    Team size: 15-25 direct/indirect reports.

Risk Management
Regulatory, risk and compliance outcomes 
•    Ensure that change initiatives deliver sustainable compliance with global tax, accounting and regulatory requirements, working closely with Technical Tax and Compliance teams.
•    Oversee change related risk management for tax (operational risk, model risk, data risk, SOX/ICFR, audit points), ensuring timely remediation and robust evidencing.
•    Partner with Internal Audit and external advisors to plan and support reviews of tax processes and systems, embedding findings into the change roadmap.

Governance
Benefits realisation and performance
•    Track KPIs and OKRs for the tax change portfolio (e.g. cycle time, error rates, manual touchpoints, audit findings, cost to serve, on time filings).
•    Ensure benefits (efficiency, cost savings, risk reduction, improved transparency) are quantified ex ante and realized, validated and reported ex post.
•    Continuously benchmark the tax function’s operating model and technology landscape against peers and external best practices, feeding insights into the roadmap.

Regulatory & Business Conduct
•    Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct. 
•    Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.
•    Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.

Key stakeholders
•    Group, Regional & Country Tax Teams
•    Tax Change & Technology
•    Other Finance Functions, particularly Controllership & Reporting
•    Finance Data, Process Excellence & Data
•    Businesses (CIB & WRB), Source to Pay (S2P), HR and other relevant functions

Other Responsibilities
•    Embed Here for good and Group’s brand and values in Tax; 
•    Perform other responsibilities assigned under Group, Country, Business or Functional policies and procedures; Multiple functions (double hats);

•    Tax or Finance transformation 
•    Ability to influence at executive level (Managing Directors & above)
•    Reasonable understanding of tax practices and regulations and the ability to connect the Reporting needs to Data needs, especially on Corporate tax, Indirect tax, Accounting for income taxes and regulatory/reporting requirements
•    Possess reasonable knowledge of Tax processes, techniques and other tools used within the Tax function to orchestrate governance around the data that are handled within the Tax Infrastructure
•    Knowledge of and ability to utilize tools, techniques and processes for gathering, analysing and validating data in a particular department or division of a company.
•    Talent Management - Knowledge of how an organization attracts, recruits, retains, identifies and develops talent; ability to develop the talent required for an organization to achieve its short-term and long-term goals
•    Builds effective working relationships with leaders, understanding their business drivers and individual needs to create significant business value

Education     
•    CA/CPA/CTA and/or MBA from a Top Tier Institute    
Certifications     
•    Certifications in project/change management (e.g. PMP, Agile) and/or process excellence leadership (Six Sigma Black Belt/ Lean) are an advantage.
Experience    
•    15+ years in tax/finance change at global banks or Tier 1 Finance BPO vendors
•    Proven track record leading multiple complex, cross border tax or finance transformation programs at scale. 
•    Demonstrated leadership of global teams and ability to influence at executive level (Managing Directors & above)

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.