Associate Director

Role & responsibilities:

Vital Skillsets Required:

Operations 70 to 75% weightage

• Leading client fronting indirect tax (GST/ Customs/ FTP) engagements (Compliance, Representation, Advisory and Litigation)
• Scoping
• Technical and quality reviews
• On-time delivery
• Client liaison
• Expected to be involved in end-to-end reporting for his/ her client/ region sales, budgets, billing and growth
• Advise and assist clients in forming indirect tax strategies to cover indirect tax exposure
• Being a consultant/ advisor on erstwhile indirect tax / GST matters to other practices across all locations
• Risk management from an erstwhile indirect tax / GST perspective on all engagements across all locations
• Identifying the impact of applied/proposed changes in the indirect tax laws upon client business and accordingly advise them on the way forward
• Controlling and managing indirect tax practice of branch locations, if need be, other than that of home location, (if required)
• Keeping track of and providing insights on various issues related to recent developments in Indirect taxes in India and globally
• Can plan and execute various practice development initiatives (incl. standardizing operating practices, and protocols for recurring activities)
• Expected to assume P&L responsibility for the defined scope of work

Clients’ account expansion and business development: 20-25% weightage

• Aligning with Partners/ sales team to generate leads and take it to order book level.
• Representing the indirect tax team at practice level, wherever required, and identifying solutions to be provided to the common leads identified
• Managing and maintaining relationships with clients, other BUs and internal stakeholders
• Strive to provide new and innovative indirect tax solutions to clients
• Identifying new opportunities for serving existing clients
• Targeting and obtaining work from potential clients
• Development of the Practice and promotion of the brand name - articles in publications, regular update management for clients, speaker at seminars, etc.
• Managing current and developing new relationships and alliances covering but not limited to Trade bodies, Nexia network firms, Law Firms, Technology alliances and other similar organizations
• Achieving assigned number KPIs about:
• Lead generation
• Sales closure combining IDT technical knowledge and commercial skills
• Client mining and account expansion
• Product campaigns about IDT products including tax technology products
• Support in preparation of monthly/ quarterly sheets for leadership from an overall practice perspective. Reporting and maintaining the MIS from practice and sales perspective and updating the leadership on the progress achieved.

Leading people and development: 5-10% weightage

• Building and managing a team including recruitment, appraisals, developing training material, providing training to team members, and technically guiding the teams in completing their assigned deliverables
• Review of efficient and effective planning, selection and team management of all resources throughout the year including temporary resource redeployment within the team/ with other departments,
• Building team morale and motivating people in the team and firm, and retention of existing employees
• Address issues at the emotional/infrastructural level at work being faced by teams, take responsibility for team building and motivation of teams
• Identifying training needs of teams and assisting in skill building where deficiencies are identified,
• Ensure onboarding and process training happen for new employees
• Perform timely appraisal and provide a balance between firm and employee aspirations
• Develop subordinates for the next levels

To be tailor-fit for the above skillsets, you need to have,

Must have –

• Minimum 8 years of experience in indirect tax
• Specialist knowledge of Goods and Services Tax, erstwhile indirect tax laws
• Experience should be in compliance, representation, advisory and adequate litigation exposure, client mining activities
• In-depth indirect taxation exposure in a few sectors
• The candidate should have or handle a portfolio of approximately 2 crores.
• Experience in independently handling GST implementation projects for clients from the planning phase to execution and delivery
• Experience in liaising with government officials and building rapport with officials
• Should have been in a client-facing role
• Supervisory / leadership experience of at least 5 years
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills including legal/technical drafting
• Very good interpersonal skills

Add on –

• Chartered Accountant / Lawyer preferred
• Experience of Customs legislation and Foreign Trade Policy (preferable)
• Basic work experience in Foreign Trade Agreements (preferable)
• Experience in advisory and compliance concerning Special Economic Zones (SEZ)
• Manager in a Big 4 or Partner / Principal in a mid-sized firm (of more than 4 partners) is preferable