RWS Group
Finance Integration Lead
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Job Purpose
Fixed Term Contract: 12 months (Initially)
Location: UK, Ideally commutable distance to Maidenhead (Head Office)
The Finance Integration Lead will own the finance workstream of RWS's acquisition of Acolad, driving the practical, end-to-end integration of Acolad's finance operations, systems, and controls into the RWS Group finance operating model. This is a high-visibility, time-bound role spanning pre-completion planning through Day 1 cutover and the first 12 months of post-completion integration.
A significant part of the role is converting the acquisition's synergy plan into detailed, costed action plans, and partnering closely with HR and functional leads to ensure synergies are delivered on time, in full, and cost-effectively.
You will partner closely with the Transform segment Finance Director, Group FP&A, Group Reporting, Tax, Treasury, and the Acolad finance team to ensure a controlled, well-sequenced integration that protects business continuity, delivers a clean cutover of banking, systems, and master data, and embeds RWS's financial control environment across the newly acquired entities — including navigating the French works council and regulatory process ahead of completion.
You will also work closely with the wider integration programme (legal, tax, HR, IT/CTPO, procurement, and supply chain workstreams) to ensure finance dependencies are correctly sequenced across the overall integration plan.
About Group Finance
In joining RWS’s Finance team you will be a critical part of supporting a listed world-leading provider of technology-enabled language, content, and intellectual property services. RWS has growing revenues of over £750m through a combination of value accretive acquisitions and organic growth. Group finance, led by our Group CFO; Stephen Lamb, includes diverse teams across the globe operating in functions including business partnering, operational finance, specialist, and group functions. We cover a footprint of over 100 legal entities in 43 different countries worldwide.
It’s a very exciting time to join RWS Finance for an individual who enjoys change and making an impact! As part of the overall RWS business strategy we are making a significant investment in upgrading our financial systems and processes to deliver enhanced reporting and control, more efficient processing enabling great value through enhanced business partnering and decision support.
Job Overview
Key Responsibilities
Pre-completion planning & due diligence follow-through
- Develop the finance integration blueprint covering banking, systems, master data, tax, and reporting requirements across Acolad's entities.
- Review financial due diligence outputs and translate findings into a practical integration risk register and mitigation plan.
- Work with legal and corporate development to understand completion mechanics and French works council timelines, and their impact on finance readiness.
- Build the Day 1 finance operating plan, including interim arrangements while Acolad and RWS continue to operate as separate businesses pre-completion.
Synergy plan delivery
- Convert the high-level synergy plan into detailed, costed, and time-phased action plans, with clear ownership and milestones for each synergy line.
- Partner with HR and functional leads to assess roles by function, align headcount and organisational design to the synergy plan, and drive delivery of workforce-related synergies.
- Track delivery of synergies against plan — on time, in full, and cost-effectively — reporting progress and variances to segment leadership and the Group Investment Committee on a regular cadence.
- Identify and escalate risks to synergy delivery early, working with functional leads to agree mitigating actions or re-phasing where required.
- Ensure synergy costs-to-achieve are tracked and managed within the overall investment case, flagging any cost overruns.
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Treasury, banking & finance systems set-up
- Review Acolad's existing banking arrangements, give notice to current banks as required, and oversee cashflow monitoring through legacy accounts during transition.
- Distribute and embed the Group's Delegation of Authority (DOA) across banking mandates.
- Lead set-up of Acolad's legal entities on the Group's finance systems, including master data download from Acolad's existing systems, completion of master data templates for upload, and review/reconciliation of loaded opening balances.
- Ensure that Acolad can report, forecast and budget in accordance with the Group processes and templates.
Operational finance & tax
- Support the Purchase Price Allocation (PPA) process and lead the opening balance sheet review, confirming fair value adjustment requirements and write-offs of equivalent balances.
- Ensure Acolad's prior year statutory accounts are filed and outstanding compliance obligations are closed out.
- Complete outstanding VAT returns and agree the transfer pricing model for Acolad entities post-close.
- Align Acolad's fiscal year end to RWS Group's (30 September) and manage the tax notification process for incorporating Acolad into the RWS Group tax structure, including stamp duty considerations.
Vendor, customer & cutover management
- Own migration of vendor and customer master data into RWS systems, including data extraction and cleansing, test loads, and formal sign-off before go-live.
- Lead AP and AR cutover: review and confirm open balances, prepare and load upload files, settle outstanding vendor invoices, and align credit control to RWS policy.
- Confirm and communicate new banking details and contacts to suppliers, and agree the future supplier processing model (e.g. migration to Helix) in partnership with Supply Chain.
- Set up intercompany agreements and agree recharge pricing between RWS and Acolad entities.
Procurement, expenses & payroll transition
- Establish an interim procurement approval process and lead the transition of Acolad employees onto RWS's standard PO process.
- Manage the transition of Acolad's expense process onto Concur, including cost centre set-up, user provisioning, authority sign-off, and training.
- Own finance's role in payroll governance and the design of Acolad's merge into the Group's payroll platform (Activ8/ADP), partnering with HR.
Compliance & Control
- Ensure a robust control environment is established across Acolad entities during the transition period, with no degradation of control standards.
- Partner with the accounting and tax teams to ensure compliance with Group accounting standards, French statutory requirements, and internal policies during and after integration.
- Support the first annual audit process for Acolad entities within the Group.
- Ensure AIM Rules disclosure obligations relating to the acquisition are met in partnership with Group Company Secretariat and IR.
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Continuous improvement & collaboration
- Capture lessons learned from the Acolad integration to strengthen RWS's playbook for future acquisitions.
- Partner with the Group team to align data, reporting, analytics, and systems across the combined business.
- Champion the Shared Service Centre (SSC) model within the newly integrated business, identifying opportunities to extend its use.
Skills & Experience
- 10+ years operational finance, or M&A integration experience, 3+ years in a senior role
- Prior hands-on experience of finance integration following an acquisition or carve-out — ideally including synergy tracking, banking cutover, ERP/master data migration, and opening balance sheet work — in a multi-country context
- Track record of converting synergy plans into deliverable action plans and driving cross-functional delivery, ideally including workforce/organisational design synergies
- Professional certified qualification (CFA/CPA/CA/AAT/CIMA/ACCA/ACA or global equivalent)
- Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or other business-related discipline
- Strong English language skills; French language skills highly beneficial given Acolad's Paris headquarters
- Practical experience with ERP systems (Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains experience beneficial) and data migration/reconciliation
- Working knowledge of transfer pricing, statutory reporting, and cross-border tax/VAT considerations
- Comfortable operating in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment with evolving completion timelines and multiple concurrent cutover workstreams
- Strong stakeholder management skills across Group, segment, HR, and target-company finance teams, and with external advisors
- Commercial mind-set with the ability to translate an investment case into a trackable value-delivery plan
Life at RWS
Life at RWS - If you like the idea of working with smart people who are passionate about growing the value of ideas, data and content by making sure organizations are understood, then you’ll love life at RWS.
Our purpose is to unlock global understanding. This means our work fundamentally recognizes the value of every language and culture. So, we celebrate difference, we are inclusive and believe that diversity makes us strong. We want every employee to grow as an individual and excel in their career.
In return, we expect all our people to live by the values that unite us: to partner, putting clients first and winning together, to pioneer, innovating fearlessly and leading with vision and courage, to progress, aiming high and growing through actions and to deliver, owning the outcome and building trust with our colleagues and clients.
RWS embraces DEI and promotes equal opportunity, we are an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. RWS is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at RWS are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sex, age, disability, or sexual orientation. RWS will not tolerate discrimination based on any of these characteristics.
RWS Values
Get the 3Ps right – Partner, Pioneer, Progress – and we´ll
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