Regional Product Owner, Accounting & Tax

Overview

This leadership role owns the Accounting & Tax (A&T) product end to end, including global scope, standards, commercial logic, processes, and economics. You will lead A&T as a Managing Director–level member of the Delivery leadership team, reporting to the Chief Delivery Officer.

Primary objective: business growth through flawless delivery. You serve as the senior product and delivery voice for A&T in the market—client-facing, trusted by prospects and key accounts, and a partner to Revenue and Sales in winning and expanding business. As the ultimate subject-matter expert, you translate market trends and customer needs into how the service is designed, packaged, priced, and delivered.

You lead the A&T function regionally through the Outsourcing Control (OC) leads. Responsibilities include building the delivery organization to meet market opportunity and client expectations, setting and defending global standards to enable scalable and sustainable delivery, and inspiring teams who deliver A&T day to day.

Responsibilities

Commercial Leadership & Growth

• Own the growth agenda for A&T—revenue, win rate, retention, and expansion—as the primary measure of success.
• Act as senior, client-facing product authority for A&T, anchoring strategic client engagements, pitches, high-stakes decisions, and escalations.
• Partner with Revenue and Sales on qualifying opportunities, shaping scope and pricing, and supporting conversion and expansion.
• Define and evolve the commercial logic (packaging, bundling, premiums, and guardrails) to enable profitable sale and delivery at scale.
• Own the reputation of the A&T product in the market.

Product Strategy & Standards

• Own regional scope, service definitions, and standards for A&T (what is in, what is out, and how it is delivered).
• Set regional execution standards, SLAs, and compliance expectations across regions and delivery models.
• Ensure delivery consistency across regions while allowing flexibility within agreed guardrails.

Market Insight & Service Design

• Maintain a deep, current view of market trends, competitor moves, and evolving customer demands for A&T.
• Translate market and client insight into service design and the delivery organization.
• Shape the product roadmap and delivery-model choices (in-house, outsourced, automated) to capture growth opportunities.

Process Standardisation & Continuous Improvement

• Set the regional A&T operating model and process standards; approve processes, SOPs, and control frameworks prior to entering delivery.
• Support the enterprise AI direction and drive adoption within A&T to enable scale and quality.

Cost Management & Commercial Sustainability

• Own product-level cost-to-serve for A&T, driving efficiency, productivity, and long-term economic sustainability.
• Make deliberate trade-offs across scope design, automation, sourcing, and delivery-model choices to maintain healthy delivery economics as the product scales.
• Diagnose cost pressures, identify root causes, and lead corrective action with Finance support for modelling and analysis.

Regional Delivery Governance & Team Leadership

• Lead the Outsourcing Control leads accountable for regional delivery outcomes and economics.
• Provide the framework for regional autonomy (in-house versus outsourced mix, capacity, and hiring proposals) and arbitrate cross-regional or peer-function disagreements when escalated.
• Lead, mentor, and develop the OC leads; build product, commercial, and delivery capability across the global A&T team.

Scope & Commercial Governance

• Propose and own changes to product scope, service tiers, and commercial logic; route through an agreed approval framework for impact assessment and implementation readiness.
• Support enabling functions on scope-to-catalogue mapping, SKU registration, and pricing alignment.
• Validate post-implementation effectiveness of scope and commercial changes using defined metrics and refine as needed.

Compliance, Audit & Risk

• Set the regional compliance posture for A&T across accounting standards (IFRS, local GAAP), tax legislation, and statutory reporting requirements.
• Ensure A&T delivery maintains internal controls and regulatory adherence in every jurisdiction the product serves.
• Engage with internal and external audit on A&T product-level matters.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with the Chief Delivery Officer, peer Global Product Owners, Revenue, Technology, and enabling functions across Delivery.
• Represent the A&T product in cross-functional and executive forums.

Key Performance Indicators

• Revenue growth and win rate for the product.
• Retention and net revenue retention (NRR).
• Margin and cost-to-serve.
• Delivery SLA attainment and quality.
• Client satisfaction (NPS).

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field; CPA, CA, ACCA, or equivalent professional accounting qualification preferred. MBA or equivalent is a plus.
• 15+ years of experience in accounting, tax, or finance operations, with at least 5 years owning a product, service line, or regional / global function end to end.
• Managing Director–level leadership experience, with the gravitas to operate as a senior commercial and product leader.
• Track record of driving growth—revenue, win rate, retention, and expansion—not only delivery.
• Experience running a service-line P&L at scale, including owning cost-to-serve, productivity, margin, and pricing logic.
• Strong working knowledge of IFRS and local GAAP, tax legislation, and statutory reporting requirements across multiple regions (APAC, EMEA, and ideally the Americas).
• Demonstrated experience designing service standards, commercial logic (packaging, bundling, premiums), and pricing frameworks.
• Strong client-facing and business-development capability; comfortable acting as the senior product voice in front of clients and prospects.
• Experience leading senior delivery and product leaders (regional heads, process leads, and outsourcing-control / vendor-management leads) across multiple regions.
• Deep market awareness with the ability to read trends and customer demand and shape the service accordingly.
• Process-oriented mindset: global standards as the foundation for scalable, sustainable delivery, with judgement on where flexibility serves the client.
• Strong analytical and strategic problem-solving skills; comfortable with financial modelling, scenario analysis, and unit economics.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills, with ability to influence at executive level.
• Proficiency in accounting platforms—Xero in particular (the central A&T platform)—and other ERP / accounting systems (QuickBooks, SAP, Oracle, or equivalent).
• Comfort with AI-assisted tools and automation as enablers of product scale and quality.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience as a product or service-line head in a global outsourced accounting / corporate-services firm or in a Big-4 advisory / managed services context.
• Experience leading a P&L turnaround, transformation, or in-housing programme.
• Experience operating in an EoR, PEO, or global business services environment.

Compensation & Benefits

• Not specified in the provided description.

Location

• Not specified in the provided description.