PERNOD RICARD

Internal Control Lead

Johannesburg Full time

Job Purpose

The Internal Control Lead is responsible for identifying control gaps across financial and operational processes, recommending improvements, and driving remediation efforts in collaboration with cross-functional teams. The ideal candidate combines analytical rigor with practical insight to enhance governance, reduce risk, and support strategic decision-making.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

Internal Control & Risk Management

Control Assessment & Gap Identification

  • Lead proactive evaluations of internal controls to uncover weaknesses, inefficiencies, and compliance risks across financial and operational processes
  • Conduct risk-based reviews of financial and operational processes.
  • Identify control deficiencies, process inefficiencies, and compliance risks.
  • Map existing controls and assess their design and operating effectiveness.
  • Performs operational audits, recommends corrective actions, and convinces internal stakeholders of the legitimacy of his/her recommendations.
  • Identifies Best Practices during the audit phase.
  • Participate in the Group internal audit process and assist with co-ordination activities as required.
  • Understands the key concepts of risk management (identification, assessment including frameworks, mitigation).
  • Identifies basic business risks.
  • Understands the internal systems and processes.

Remediation & Advisory

  • Collaborate with stakeholders to design and implement effective remediation plans, offering practical recommendations that strengthen the control environment
  • Collaborate with process owners to develop and implement remediation plans.
  • Provide actionable recommendations to strengthen internal controls.
  • Monitor and report on remediation progress and effectiveness

Risk Management

  • Drive enterprise-wide risk assessments to identify emerging threats, develop mitigation strategies, and embed risk awareness into core business practices.
  • Perform risk assessments to identify emerging threats and vulnerabilities.
  • Collaborate with stakeholders to develop mitigation strategies and embed risk awareness into business processes.
  • Monitor key risk indicators and support enterprise risk reporting.
  • Participates to risks analysis and makes recommendations for corrective actions
  • Ensures the implementation of corrective action plans related to risk management
  • Identifies and qualifies complex or inter-related business risks and recommend corrective action plans

Governance & Reporting

  • Ensure transparency and accountability through clear reporting of control and risk findings to senior leadership and audit committees.
  • Prepare clear, actionable reports for senior leadership and audit committees.
  • Maintain documentation of control and risk assessments, findings, and resolutions.
  • Support internal and external audit engagements with relevant insights and evidence.

Continuous Improvement

  • Champion a culture of control excellence by staying ahead of regulatory changes and leading initiatives that enhance and automate risk and control processes.
  • Champion a culture of control and risk awareness across the organization.
  • Stay abreast of regulatory changes, industry trends, and best practices.
  • Lead initiatives to automate, streamline, and enhance control and risk processes

Business Acumen

  • Ability to view and understand business from a holistic perspective
  • Demonstrates general awareness of the Business Environment
  • Understands the key drivers and challenges of the company
  • Has a basic knowledge of local organizational structures and functions

Project Management

  • Ability to plan, monitor and deliver projects in line with objectives
  • Project management basics (task list, meetings, write wrap-up report etc).
  • Coordinates information flows between project participants in a few departments.
  • Reports project progress with accuracy.
  • Understands what is at stake in the project (risks and opportunities).

Relationship Building & Communication

  • Ability to build, nurture and leverage quality and trusting relationship
  • Ability to communicate effectively with internal and external stakeholders at all levels of the organization,
  • Initiates and/or improves positive working relationships and interactions within the team
  • Communicates clearly both written and verbally, adapting the messages to the audience
  • Builds trusting relationships by acting with integrity
  • Proactively communicates across departments to improve cooperation
  • Builds quality relationships, understanding organisation and individual issues, through strong interpersonal skills
  • Identifies potential conflicts and escalates them to the appropriate level
  • Is comfortable dealing with people at all levels of the organisation

Key Competencies and Experience

Knowledge, Skills and Attributes:

Functional and Technical Competencies:

  • Proactivity, Planning & Organising, Quality Orientation, Stress Management, Agility
  • Strong understanding of financial processes and control frameworks
  • Excellent analytical, problem solving, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
  • Ability to influence and drive change across diverse teams

Qualifications and Experience:

  •  Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or related field (CPA, CIA, or CISA etc)
  • +5 years’ experience in Internal Control or Risk Management

Job Posting End Date:

Target Hire Date:

2026-02-01

Target End Date: