Vice-President, Finance

STATUS: Permanent – Full-time
LOCATION: Westmount, Montreal
REPORTS TO: Chief Operating Officer (COO)
DOTTED-LINE TO : CEO of WCM and CEO of the family office

COMPANY OVERVIEW:

Walter Capital Management (WCM) is the management company that brings together the Walter Group’s investment activities across three platforms: private equity (Walter Capital Partners), asset management (Walter Global Asset Management) and public markets (Walter Public Investments). WCM also plays a growing role as a shared-services hub for the broader Walter ecosystem.

WCM is part of the Walter Group, a family investment firm whose team members share the interests and values of the Somers family. Made up of seasoned financial experts, our teams oversee a substantial portfolio whose assets are managed largely in-house.

Driven by a strong entrepreneurial spirit spanning several generations, our teams take a dynamic approach grounded in a long-term investment philosophy. They bring passion to everything they do and build relationships based on trust, integrity, respect and fairness.

POSITION OVERVIEW:

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer (COO), with a functional (dotted-line) relationship to the CEO of WCM and to the CEO of the family office (shareholder of WCM), the Vice-President, Finance leads WCM’s finance function and bridges finance, operations and performance measurement.

The incumbent leads the existing finance and accounting team, drives its performance and development, and acts as a strategic business partner to senior leadership and to the platform heads. The role works closely with the COO, who will support the incumbent’s progression. It is aimed at someone who wants to broaden their mandate and build a finance function that matches a growing group.

Beyond day-to-day financial management, the incumbent contributes actively to shaping the shared-services strategy that WCM is called to deploy within the Group. This means understanding what the business units do, determining which mandates WCM can take on to relieve them, and scaling WCM’s operations to help the Walter ecosystem grow faster and more efficiently.

RESPONSABILITIES:

Leading the finance function

• Hold overall responsibility for general accounting and reporting functions (month-end, quarter-end, year-end, consolidation, P&L, balance sheet and cash flows).
• Lead, mentor and grow the existing finance and accounting team, fostering satisfaction, retention and professional advancement.
• Oversee and analyze the company’s financial results in terms of profit, trends, costs and budget adherence, and make recommendations.
• Ensure appropriate internal controls are in place and maintained.
• Coordinate external audits and oversee implementation of approved recommendations.
• Ensure tax obligations and requirements are met across the various entities and, where applicable, external investors.
• Manage the Group’s treasury and liquidity: cash-flow projections, optimization of cash levels and banking-platform relationships.

Financial planning and growth support

• Lead the annual budgeting process and periodic forecasts for WCM and its shared-services mandates.
• Build financial models and business cases to support leadership decisions (new mandates, hires, systems investments).
• Assess the cost and value of the services WCM provides to the business units and propose allocation or chargeback models.
• Turn financial and operational data into analysis that drives decisions, not just dashboards.

Strategic partnership and reporting

• Act as a strategic business partner to the COO, the CEO of WCM and the platform leadership to facilitate financial decision-making.Design and deploy a performance-measurement framework linking financial and operational data across WCM and the platforms, with key performance indicators relevant to an asset-management firm.
• Collaborate with platform leadership to deliver high-quality reporting to external investors.
• Contribute to reporting for shareholders and advisory-board meetings.

Shared services and operational growth

• Contribute to shaping WCM’s shared-services strategy within the Walter Group.
• Understand business-unit activities in order to identify mandates WCM can take on to relieve them.
• Identify sources of inefficiency and recommend or lead improvements across operations.
• Support the scale-up of WCM’s operations to help the Walter ecosystem grow faster and more efficiently.

Asset management and public markets

• Oversee the implementation of performance measurement and client reporting for the business units, including public markets.
• Work jointly with the public-markets middle office, including compliance.
• Where necessary, participate in the creation of new funds and new public-markets products.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

Professional experience

• 10 to 15 years of progressive finance experience, including significant FP&A or financial-planning experience (private-equity or asset-management experience a strong asset).
• Experience managing teams and developing talent, ideally as a finance director looking to broaden their role.
• Experience with systems implementation and integration.
• Comfort in a fast-growing, constantly evolving environment.

Skills

• Fully bilingual (French and English).
• Comfort with BI tools and ERP systems, and an interest in automating finance processes.

Personal attributes

• Engaging leadership and the ability to rally a team around shared goals.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders (platform leaders, shareholders).
• Excellent communication and analytical skills.
• Strong people-management, interpersonal and coaching abilities.
• Collaborative, service- and results-oriented approach.
• Strong sense of priorities and ability to juggle multiple files at once.
• Both pragmatic and strategic thinking.
• Willingness to roll up sleeves when needed; no task too big or too small

WHY THIS ROLE:

• A leadership role with direct visibility to senior leadership and the shareholder.
• The opportunity to build a finance function and a shared-services offering that are still taking shape.> Direct mentorship from the COO and a mandate set to grow with the Group.
• A family-owned, entrepreneurial environment with a long-term outlook.

WHY JOIN WALTER?

• Renowned asset management firm that promotes intern development by engaging them in various projects
• Modern offices including a private gym with amenities (showers and lockers)
• Easy public transport access (next to Atwater station)
• Snacks, fresh fruit, barista-style coffee

Walter’s business units are passionate about what they do and foster relationships built on trust, integrity, respect and fairness.
We thank all candidates for their interest in Walter Capital Management. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.