Internal Controls Manager - Americas Commercial

Job Description

At CooperVision, a business unit of CooperCompanies (Nasdaq: COO), we’re driven by a unified purpose of helping people experience life’s beautiful moments. We are connected through our shared values - dedicated, innovative, friendly, partners, and do the right thing. As a leading global manufacturer of contact lenses, we are committed to helping improve the way people see each day. Through our diverse lens portfolio, we tackle the toughest vision challenges – including astigmatism, presbyopia, and childhood myopia. We offer the most complete collection of spherical, toric, and multifocal products available, enabling us to fit 99% of all contact wearers. Learn more at www.coopervision.com.

• This role is not eligible for employer-sponsored work authorization now or in the future. Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a permanent and ongoing basis without the need for future sponsorship (i.e., H1B, STEM OPT extensions, TN, etc.)
• This position requires full-time onsite work (5 days per week) in Victor, NY and is not eligible for relocation assistance

Responsibilities

• Develop and actively manage strong business partnerships with key stakeholders including controllers, control owners and auditors, to drive effective and timely communication including changes in policy or control requirements, remediation of any control issues or accounting errors, or business concerns requiring additional support, etc.

• Develop and maintain effective stakeholder engagement strategies, including identifying appropriate points of contact, establishing communication cadences, coordinating routine compliance activities, and ensuring communications are directed only to appropriate stakeholders and decision makers.

• Consolidate and escalate policy and / or accounting inquiries to ensure proper and consistent treatment.

• Coordinate and deliver formal trainings to ensure compliance requirements are known and understood across the business.

• Actively participate in global internal controls strategic discussions and propose continuous improvement opportunities to drive automation, efficiency, visibility, and accountability in the maintenance of the control environment. Able to think creatively and utilize existing tools and resources in the execution of proposed improvement opportunities.

• Proactively plan and coordinate recurring compliance tasks, project activities, audit readiness, and control activities with stakeholders to ensure adequate notice, resource planning, and timely execution.

• Manage local communication, coordination, and execution of key global internal controls initiatives.

• Lead control rollouts to ensure a complete risk and controls framework exists with proper control ownership identified.

• Track changes in key personnel and/or processes and assess for impact on the control environment. Oversee risk mitigation efforts and required updates to control data and/or documentation.

• Provide guidance to new control owners and ensure control ownership is fully transitioned timely & effectively.

• Escalate emerging risks, stakeholder concerns, resource constraints, and barriers to execution in a timely manner, including recommended mitigation plans and resolution options.

• Monitor completeness and accuracy testing of key reports used for control activities (i.e. IPE Reports), ensuring local personnel are properly trained on what acceptable protocols and forms are, and where required, support testing activities.

• Review annual control certification / self-assessment responses and work with control owners to ensure control records and documentation in the Control Management System are kept up to date and accurate prior to audits (includes IC Memos, Related IPE Documents, Systems used, Control Thresholds, Process Flowcharts, etc.).

• Liaise with the internal and external audit teams to align on audit plan and discuss any new expectations or changes in approach, advocating on behalf of the business where needed. Assess change impact and any new requests for appropriateness and feasibility, proposing an effective and efficient path forward, and facilitating the fulfillment of those needs.

• Monitor audit status, outstanding audit requests, issues identified and remediation status to ensure timeliness, integrity of data reported in the Control Management System, and alignment of required actions by the business.

• Understand and discuss validity of audit issues (both SOX & Non-SOX) with regional audit and local teams, demonstrating ability to clearly articulate risks and communicate concerns or petition for why the business does not agree with issues raised.

• Monitor reported issues, review financial impact, analyze total exposure, and determine underlying root causes.

• Partner with remediation owners on development of management responses, due dates & accountability of action items for input to the audit report. Propose remediation actions that effectively address the underlying root causes and align with global requirements. Complete action plan forms & maintain issue / action plan completeness and accuracy within the Control Management System.

• Monitor remediation actions, provide periodic status updates to management, global internal controls management and regional internal audit, and send final confirmation of remediation to internal audit. Escalate any challenges that may result in exceeded action plan due dates and develop contingency plans to sufficiently mitigate risk.

• Work with local personnel to understand and document accounting issues, and analyze issue exposure.

• Annually update risk acceptances and audit memo documentation, route for proper approvals, and submit to audit.

• Manage routine compliance and reporting tasks.

• Actively participate in the Balance Sheet Review process, including tracking and monitoring closure of any action items.

• Support risk assessment activities and status communications prior to implementing new systems or software and monitor post implementation impact on local control processes.

• Perform other ad hoc and critical tasks to support the overall achievement of team and Company priorities, as needed.

• Directly manage staff and provide on-going training and development; set goals and objectives and evaluate performance and achievements.

• CooperVision’s management team is committed to the development of and implementation of the quality management system and maintaining its effectiveness by communicating to the organization the importance of meeting customer as well as statutory and regulatory requirements.

Qualifications

Experience

• 8 years of experience within an external audit, internal controls / audit or public accounting environment
• Understanding of internal controls and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting or Business is required; Master’s degree a plus
• Appropriate certificate in accounting and/or auditing (e.g., Certified Public Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants: ACA, ACCA, CA), a plus

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Excellent interpersonal and presentation skills, including written and verbal communication, especially in developing positions and presenting to management, auditors, and non-accounting stakeholders.
• Professional, collaborative, and solution-oriented communication. Adapts communication style based on audience, incorporates stakeholder feedback, and maintains constructive working relationships during disagreements or escalations.
• Experience and understanding of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) requirements, including experience in defining and designing controls. U.S. GAAP policy experience.
• Ability to develop trusted partnerships across functions through respect, collaboration, credibility, responsiveness, and effective problem solving.
• Strong work ethic and desire to collaborate with others to achieve team goals.
• Demonstrates openness to feedback, adjusts approach when concerns are raised, and proactively seeks input to improve stakeholder engagement and effectiveness.
• Demonstrates Cooper values through respectful interactions, accountability, collaboration, integrity, and constructive engagement across all stakeholder groups.
• Ability to independently research, analyze and interpret data.
• Ability to organize workload and self-manage completion of responsibilities on time and in line with the team priorities.
• Flexibility in handling conflicting priorities working under strict deadlines with ability to identify and escalate challenges that would impact a successful result.
• Sound independent judgment.
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams and Visio).
• Knowledge of Oracle, COGNOS, ServiceNow, Workiva, Microsoft Dyn