Director, Global Operational Accounting

Role Overview The Director, Global Operational Accounting is responsible for the strategy, performance, operational oversight, and continued transformation of Pfizer’s global cash, bank, payroll, and intercompany accounting activities. The role provides end-to-end leadership across these accounting areas, ensuring accurate and timely financial reporting, effective internal controls, consistent execution of global processes, and strong partnership with stakeholders across Controllers, Finance, Treasury, Tax, People Experience, Digital, and Global Business Services.

The Director will establish and execute the global vision and strategy for Cash, Payroll, and Intercompany Accounting, with a focus on operational excellence, standardization, simplification, automation, and scalable global processes. A central accountability will be advancing the organization toward an AI-enabled and increasingly AI-native accounting operating model that uses intelligent automation, predictive insights, and exception-based management to improve quality, control, speed, capacity, and colleague experience. The role will serve as the principal escalation point for complex accounting, operational, control, technology, and service-delivery matters within the scope of the organization. The Director will ensure that acquisitions, divestitures, system implementations, digital initiatives, artificial intelligence solutions, and other transformation activities affecting these processes are appropriately designed, governed, integrated, implemented, and operationalized.

As a member of the Global Accounting Leadership Team, the Director will contribute to the broader strategy and priorities of Global Accounting and Controllers, working across organizational boundaries to develop solutions to complex global accounting and operational challenges. The Director will lead and develop a geographically dispersed team and build strong succession and talent pipelines within the organization.

Key Responsibilities Global Accounting Leadership · Provide strategic direction and operational oversight for end-to-end global accounting activities related to cash and bank accounts, payroll, and intercompany transactions and balances. · Establish and execute the short-term and long-term strategy for Global Cash, Payroll, and Intercompany Accounting in alignment with Global Accounting, Controllers, and Finance & GBS. · Maintain clear global process ownership, governance, accountability, and performance expectations across all in-scope accounting activities. · Serve as the senior escalation point for complex accounting, operational, control, technology, and service-delivery matters. · Ensure timely, complete, and accurate accounting and reporting in accordance with applicable accounting standards, corporate policies, and established close requirements. · Provide leadership across global markets, legal entities, business units, and service-delivery locations, promoting consistent execution while addressing legitimate local statutory and business requirements. Global Cash and Bank Accounting · Lead end-to-end accounting and reporting for global cash and bank accounts. · Ensure timely and accurate recording, reconciliation, review, and resolution of cash and bank activity. · Establish effective governance over bank reconciliations, cash-related journal entries, balance-sheet reconciliations, and aged or unreconciled items. · Partner with Treasury, regional and market finance teams, shared-service organizations, and banking stakeholders to resolve accounting and operational issues. · Monitor cash-accounting risks, aged reconciling items, and process or system deficiencies, ensuring remediation plans are developed and executed. · Support changes to banking structures, treasury processes, payment platforms, and financial systems affecting cash and bank accounting. Global Payroll Accounting · Lead end-to-end accounting and reporting for global payroll-related accounts and transactions. · Ensure payroll accounting entries, reconciliations, analytical reviews, and financial reporting are completed accurately within established close timelines. · Oversee timely identification and resolution of payroll accounting issues, aged balances, reconciling items, and control deficiencies. · Partner with People Experience, Payroll Operations, Tax, Treasury, market finance teams, service providers, and other stakeholders to ensure effective handoffs and clear accountability. · Provide accounting leadership for payroll-related process changes, system implementations, organizational changes, and new service-delivery models. · Ensure global payroll accounting appropriately addresses local statutory requirements while maintaining consistent global governance and control standards. Global Intercompany Accounting · Lead end-to-end global intercompany accounting, including transaction recording, account reconciliation, confirmation, settlement support, mismatch resolution, and financial reporting. · Establish global governance and accountability for timely resolution of intercompany differences and aged balances. · Partner with Tax, Treasury, Legal Entity Controllers, business finance, regional teams, and shared-service organizations to address complex intercompany matters. · Ensure appropriate accounting and control over intercompany charges, allocations, settlements, and related balance-sheet accounts. · Drive consistent practices for intercompany cutoff, reconciliation, dispute resolution, and period-end reporting. · Provide accounting leadership for intercompany implications arising from acquisitions, divestitures, legal-entity changes, restructurings, system implementations, and transfer-pricing or operating-model changes. Financial Close, Controls, and Compliance · Ensure all in-scope activities are performed to a high standard of operational excellence and in accordance with service-level agreements, close calendars, accounting policies, and control requirements. · Maintain a strong internal-control environment, including complete and accurate process documentation, work instructions, and SOX control documentation. · Monitor close performance, reconciliations, aged items, control execution, and other key performance and risk indicators. · Coordinate with the Global Close Center of Excellence and other stakeholders to monitor period-end progress, identify risks, and escalate matters affecting close or reporting deadlines. · Support internal and external audits, SOX compliance, statutory requirements, and remediation of control observations. · Leverage BlackLine, automation, analytics, and AI-enabled monitoring to strengthen reconciliation governance, identify exceptions and risk indicators, and support timely, evidence-based resolution while maintaining appropriate human review and accountability. · Ensure issues are assessed, documented, escalated, and resolved with clear ownership and sustainable corrective actions. Transformation, Automation & AI-Native Finance · Lead a multi-year transformation roadmap toward an AI-enabled and increasingly AI-native accounting operating model across Cash, Payroll, and Intercompany Accounting. · Drive standardization, simplification, and optimization of global accounting processes, using process redesign as the foundation for scalable automation and digital solutions. · Identify, prioritize, pilot, and scale opportunities for generative AI, agentic AI, advanced analytics, workflow orchestration, and intelligent automation to improve quality, control effectiveness, productivity, capacity, and colleague experience. · Champion the transition from transaction-focused processing to exception-based management through touchless processing, intelligent matching, predictive insights, and AI-enabled decision support where appropriate. · Partner with Digital, Finance Transformation, enterprise AI teams, process owners, and control stakeholders to design and deploy solutions that are sustainable, secure, well governed, and integrated into the accounting operating model. · Establish appropriate governance, documentation, human oversight, and risk-management practices for the responsible use of AI and automation in accounting and financial-reporting activities. · Serve as business sponsor for the BlackLine strategy and optimization roadmap across in-scope processes, including Account Reconciliations, Transaction Matching, Intercompany capabilities, Journal Entry Management, and relevant controls and compliance functionality. · Drive consistent global adoption and value realization from BlackLine by improving reconciliation quality, increasing automation, accelerating exception resolution, strengthening controls, and reducing manual activity. · Oversee accounting and operational readiness for financial-system implementations, process migrations, outsourcing arrangements, acquisitions, divestitures, integrations, separations, and organizational or service-delivery changes. · Establish measures and governance routines for automation adoption, BlackLine utilization, reconciliation effectiveness, exception volumes, productivity, control execution, service quality, and transformation progress. · Ensure transformation initiatives are appropriately controlled, documented, adopted, and sustained across relevant teams, markets, and service-delivery locations. Business Partnership · Build effective relationships across Controllers, Global Accounting, Treasury, Tax, People Experience, Payroll Operations, Digital, enterprise AI teams, Finance Transformation, Global Business Services, regional finance organizations, BlackLine stakeholders, and external service providers. · Ensure handoffs between teams are clearly defined, effectively governed, and consistently executed. · Influence stakeholders across a complex global and matrixed organization to achieve accounting, control, operational, and transformation objectives. · Translate complex accounting, technology, and operational matters into clear risks, options, and recommendations for senior leadership. · Represent Global Accounting in cross-functional governance forums and initiatives affecting cash, payroll, or intercompany accounting. · Proactively develop solutions that balance accounting requirements, operational practicality, control, innovation, and business priorities. People and Organizational Leadership · Lead, coach, and develop a geographically dispersed global team. · Establish clear goals, performance expectations, decision rights, and accountability across the organization. · Create an inclusive, highly engaged environment characterized by shared accountability, collaboration, operational discipline, innovation, and continuous improvement. · Develop current and future leaders through coaching, stretch assignments, cross-functional experiences, and intentional career development. · Build and maintain effective succession plans for critical roles and capabilities. · Ensure the organization has the technical accounting, operational, analytical, automation, AI, digital, and leadership capabilities required to operate effectively in an increasingly AI-native environment. · Optimize organizational capacity and deployment of resources across locations and teams.

Key Business Partners and Stakeholders · Controllers Leadership Team · Global Accounting Leadership Team · Treasury and regional treasury organizations · Tax and tax operations · People Experience and Payroll Operations · Global Business Services · Legal Entity Controllers and regional finance teams · Business-unit finance organizations · Global Close Center of Excellence · Digital and financial-systems teams · Enterprise AI and automation teams · BlackLine platform owners and support teams · Finance Transformation and Project Management · Internal Audit and external auditors · Banking partners and external service providers

Candidate Profile The successful candidate will be a strategic and operationally focused accou