South Africa: Regional Finance Manager posted by Wild Dreams Hospitality

About the Role

Wild Dreams Hospitality, a globally recognised luxury travel and conservation brand, is seeking a commercially minded Regional Finance Manager to lead the finance function across Kenya. The ideal candidate will combine strong financial expertise with operational insight and thrive in a collaborative, purpose-driven environment. They must be passionate about sustainability and capable of influencing performance across diverse teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Ensure adherence to group financial policies, procedures and internal control standards.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to ensure financial objectives are fully aligned with the company’s strategic and operational goals.
• Act as the primary financial authority at regional level, providing clear commercial guidance to operational teams.
• Ensure robust internal control frameworks, including segregation of duties, approval hierarchies and compliance with group control standards.
• Work closely with Lodge Managers, General Managers, Managing Directors to identify opportunities for financial and operational improvement.
• Translate financial data into practical, commercial actions that improve profitability, efficiency and sustainability.
• Develop and implement practical training and mentorship initiatives
• Support payroll, pricing, cost control, capital expenditure and investment decisions at lodge and regional level.
• Challenge assumptions constructively and bring a commercial lens to operational plans and initiatives.
• Act as sounding board and partner to Operational Teams
• Assume responsibility for the financial management of the DMC, including understanding and maintaining Tourplan daily operations, accounting policies, and month end reporting.
• Support Pan, Tourplan, Sage and other operational system development and on the ground implementation, ensuring effective communication between IT and Lodge teams.
• Lead the preparation of annual budgets, annual forecasts, 5 year high level forecasts and refurbishment models in collaboration with operational and finance teams.
• Prepare and review monthly management accounts, inter alia including detailed variance analysis and commentary; Analysis of lodge profitability, margin drivers and cost structures, and Identification of opportunities to improve financial performance across the portfolio
• Monitor financial performance against budgets, forecasts and refurbishment deliverables.
• Design, implement and continuously improve financial systems, processes and internal controls that support growth and complexity.
• Identify potential improvements on Sage, Panstrat & Tourplan.
• Ongoing assessment and identification of financial and operational risks
• Provide pre-emptive training to key staff to strengthen control
• Oversight and resolution of financial risk management including tax, regulatory, and operational risk exposure.
• Review and authorise payments in accordance with VAT, tax and internal control requirements
• Monitor regional cashflow and liquidity across operations
• Forecast funding requirements in collaboration with the Group Treasury Manager
• Maintain effective banking relationships and ensure efficient treasury processes
• Ongoing allocation, control and review of capex expenditure against budget, updating forecasts , investigating and identifying overruns in total project costs against approved plans
• Ensure appropriate succession planning and skills development within the finance function.
• Ongoing training and development of General Managers, Lodge Managers and relevant decision makers to better understand and use financial reports, systems and controls to improve efficiencies, internal controls and data integrity

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Commerce (Acc) or equivalent or Higher
• Certified Public Accountant (K), Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) or equivalent
• 12+ years finance experience
• 5+ years in a leadership or management role
• Experience in multi-site operations
• Hospitality / tourism / safari / remote operations experience beneficial

Qualifications

No specific qualifications mentioned.

Salary & Benefits

Salary and benefits not specified in the original job description.