Overview
Job Description:
This role is the subject matter expert for the development, maintenance, and evaluation of the Sustainability Reporting for Finance framework and creation of supporting documentation to ensure the ongoing adherence of Mars, Incorporated to global regulations and mandatory reporting.
The Sustainability Reporting Senior Manager will interact with associates throughout the business to develop, improve and oversee Sustainability initiatives and ensure that the appropriate guidance is followed, primarily partnering with the Sustainability team, Public Affairs, Corporate Controllership, the Segments and MGS to ensure awareness and compliance. In addition, this role will support identification of potential gaps and provide remediation guidance and tracking.
It will require significant project management responsibilities to ensure that ongoing initiatives are rolled out according to pre-defined timelines and that potential challenges are identified and escalated in a timely manner.
This is a key role to ensure that Mars, Incorporated maintains high standards of internal control and governance, risk, and compliance in an efficient and effective manner. It is critical that the individual in this role take ownership for not only the process, but the outcome of the process and drive positive change and improvement at a fast pace.
The ideal candidate will have strong functional/technical and analytical skills as well as attention to detail required for managing this complex area. The candidate should also have the ability to influence without authority and the organizational and project management skills to support the management of a global initiative requiring interfaces with many associates around the world.
We are recruiting for 3 positions.
What are we looking for?
- Bachelor’s degree in relevant discipline (e.g., Accounting, Finance, Business, or Sustainability) required.
- MS or MBA a plus.
- CPA preferred.
- 8-10 years of experience in accounting, finance, IT, sustainability or risk & control roles, with a focus for at least 3-5 years in roles practicing the technical knowledge and skills listed above.
- Experience with privately owned, global, decentralized organization.
- Experience with Big 4 public accounting, CPG, manufacturing, or service-based industries.
- Experience with sustainability reporting processes and controls, including opportunities for automation and standardization.
- Experience with one or several of the following: CSRD, CDP, ISSB, EU Taxonomy, COSO, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX).
What will be your key responsibilities?
1. Implementation and Maintenance of the Sustainability Controls Framework
- Assist the Director in providing guidance on sustainability control matters globally, supporting management and control owners with insights and training.
- Help evaluate and improve the sustainability control framework, especially when business processes or regulatory requirements change, while identifying opportunities to standardize controls.
- Collaborate with global subject matter experts to integrate new control guidance into existing reporting processes.
- Support the governance and control escalation process as needed.
- Engage and educate Sustainability data owners, especially non-S&F functions, to develop a strong controls culture including educational materials and training
- Work closely with Corporate, Segments, data owners, and internal/external audit to support risk management initiatives across global reporting.
- Support coordination across all metric owners to ensure governance, control, and high-quality data for sustainability reporting
- Assist in managing data governance program and ensure governance approach meets standards for various disclosure levels (i.e., regulatory bodies, banks, rate agencies, etc.)
- Collaborate with data owners to set and perform regular monitoring for sustainability metrics
- Analyze, summarize, and consolidate data into cohesive reporting; presenting data trends, insights and related recommendations
- Work with the Director to implement a risk-based approach to prioritizing highest-risk sustainability reporting areas
- Support the development and manage reporting calendar and coordination of reporting requirements with Sustainability teams, Public Affairs, and others
- Participate in the Corporate Sustainability Metrics Governance group, reporting to the VP Financial Controller
- Assist in identifying and defining processes to meet mandatory sustainability reporting requirements.
- Conduct research on best practices and control literature to help shape recommendations related to sustainability reporting including performing peer analysis and identify benchmarking indicators
- Provide updates to the Director and other stakeholders on the status of reporting requirements and ongoing initiatives.
- Lead the development and management of sustainability metrics within Workiva, ensuring all metrics for sustainability reports are accurately built, tracked, and maintained within the tool.
- Oversee the data collection process, ensuring smooth and efficient workflows for each reporting cycle by coordinating with metric owners and other stakeholders.
- Develop and implement comprehensive training programs for Workiva users across various levels and functions, tailoring content to meet specific user needs.
- Serve as the primary subject matter expert on Workiva, providing guidance, troubleshooting, and best practices to the team and ensuring optimal use of the platform for sustainability reporting.
- Help track and monitor CFO data certification to confirm compliance with reported data as a part of their annual/quarterly QCCP compliance checks
- Support the Director in overseeing the certification process, ensuring all scorecards are monitored and any data gaps are addressed effectively.
6. Communication – Internal and External (work with public affairs)
- Support Director, Sr. Director – Financial Controls & Sustainability Reporting, VP Financial Controller, VP Sustainability, and Public Affairs team in internal and external communication of key ESG metrics, talking points, and other content
- Assist Corporate Sustainability Team with coordination of responses to any key sustainability surveys (e.g., CDP, Sustainalytics, MSCI, S&P, Bloomberg, etc.)
- Understand the main drivers behind the ratings and maintain documentation of peer rankings and year-over-year changes.
- Collaborate with Public Affairs & Sustainability teams to create Sustainability content development including MyMars and Mars.com
7. Cross-functional Collaboration Data owners, Internal Audit, Risk
Management, and External Audit
- Work cross-functionally with various stakeholders across the organization (e.g., Sustainability metric data owners, Sustainability, Internal Audit, Risk Management, External Audit, Public Affairs, Technical Accounting, etc.)
- Maintain global coordination and oversee projects related to corporate Sustainability activities
- Ensure consistency with best practices in the corporate Sustainability space
- Align on key initiatives
8. Sustainability Education
- Support the Director in launching a Sustainability Reporting training program – with specific tracks for various functions and roles
- Develop a process to engage with Corporate and Segment leaders encouraging integration of Sustainability initiatives into their strategy
- Develop a Teams community to foster engagement, track ESG needs and frequently asked questions, ensuring consistency in responses
What can you expect from Mars?
- Work with over 140,000 diverse and talented Associates, all guided by the Five Principles.
- Join a purpose driven company, where we’re striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today.
- Best-in-class learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.
- An industry competitive salary and benefits package, including company bonus.
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Mars is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. If you need assistance or an accommodation during the application process because of a disability, it is available upon request. The company is pleased to provide such assistance, and no applicant will be penalized as a result of such a request.
Mars is a family-owned business with more than $50 billion in global sales. We produce some of the world’s best-loved brands: M&M’s®, SNICKERS®, TWIX®, MILKY WAY®, DOVE®, PEDIGREE®, ROYAL CANIN®, WHISKAS®, EXTRA®, ORBIT®, 5™, SKITTLES®, BEN’S ORIGINAL® and COCOAVIA®. Alongside our consumer brands, we proudly take care of half of the world’s pets through our nutrition, health and services businesses such as Banfield Pet Hospitals™, BluePearl®, Linnaeus, AniCura, VCA™ and Pet Partners™. Headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars operates in more than 80 countries. The Mars Five Principles – Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom – inspire our 150,000 Associates into taking action every day towards creating the world we want tomorrow.