Stiftung Hilfswerk der Evangelischen Kirchen Schweiz (HEKS)
Zürich
10 hours ago
Head of Finance and Controlling
- 27 February 2026
- 100%
- Permanent position
- Zürich
Job summary
HEKS is a Swiss NGO with 1,500 staff, active in 35 countries. Join a mission-driven team focused on justice and sustainability.
Tasks
- Lead the Finance and Controlling department with a strategic vision.
- Ensure compliance with Swiss accounting standards and governance.
- Drive financial planning and risk management initiatives.
Skills
- Degree in finance or related field; leadership experience required.
- Strong analytical and numerical skills essential.
- Fluency in German, French, and English is a must.
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About the job
HEKS is a relief organization of the Evangelical Reformed Churches of Switzerland with over 1,500 employees, implementing around 290 programs and projects worldwide in 35 countries and at 24 Swiss locations with a budget of 144 million CHF. The goal is a just world with peace, lived human dignity, and protection of natural resources. Focus areas are climate justice, right to land and food, flight and migration, and inclusion, complemented by humanitarian aid. The highest body is the Board of Trustees, which supervises the management; it currently consists of five women and six men.
Lived diversity - inclusion is important to us:
We welcome applications regardless of gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion, age, or sexual orientation.
Lived diversity - inclusion is important to us:
We welcome applications regardless of gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion, age, or sexual orientation.
Head of Finance and Controlling
For our finance department at the headquarters in Zurich, we are looking immediately or by arrangement for a committed, independent, and team-oriented personality who wants to contribute in a newly created position:
Head of Finance and Controlling
For the strategic further development of our organization, we are looking for an entrepreneurial-thinking, integrative leader as Head of Finance & Controlling. In this key role, you bear overall responsibility for financial management, governance, and the further development of the financial architecture in both national and international contexts.
Your main tasks:
Professional and personnel leadership of the Finance & Controlling department
- Overall management of the Finance & Controlling department
- Professional and personnel leadership as well as further development of employees through coaching and targeted internal/external training
- Ensuring clear roles, deputies, and efficient organizational structures
- Establishing a trusting, appreciative, and performance-oriented team culture
- Cost center responsibility for all cost centers within the department
Accounting, financial statements, and financial control and planning
- Overall responsibility for proper accounting according to Swiss GAAP FER, Swiss Code of Obligations, and ZEWO guidelines
- Overall responsibility for the individual financial statement as well as the consolidated group accounts
- Overall responsibility for the annual financial statements of the pension fund according to OR
- Leading and coordinating the annual audit process (individual and consolidated financial statements)
- Ensuring a DEZA-compliant audit framework in international country offices
- Coordinating project-specific audits domestically and abroad
- Professional support in forensic investigations
- Contact person and sparring partner for management and the finance committee of the Board of Trustees
- Financial assessment of strategic initiatives and investment decisions
- Overall responsibility for budgeting, forecasting, and strategic multi-year planning
- Development and provision of modern control instruments (management reporting, KPI systems, scenario analyses, cost-effectiveness calculations)
- Supporting operational areas in project budgeting, cost recovery, and contribution margin calculations
- Further development of an integrated performance management system (finance & impact)
- Ensuring transparent reporting to the Board of Trustees and relevant committees
- Financial impact measurement in the non-profit context
Treasury
- Treasury management (development and implementation of an organization-wide treasury concept, ensuring permanent solvency and liquidity planning as well as active foreign currency management)
- Capital structure (sustainable and regulatory-compliant investment strategy (ESG-oriented), ensuring efficient and secure payment processes domestically and abroad, bank account management, and strategic assurance of long-term financial stability)
Governance, compliance & risk management in finance
- Development and implementation of a comprehensive financial risk management system
- Building and further developing an internal control system (ICS) according to OR
- Overall responsibility for financial governance of subsidiaries, participations, and branches domestically and abroad
- Ensuring uniform financial standards, guidelines, and control principles
- Professional leadership and support of local financial managers in governance and compliance issues
- Ensuring compliance with national and international accounting, compliance, and anti-corruption standards
- Monitoring regulatory developments domestically and abroad
Financial processes, digitization & data
- Overall responsibility for the existing financial architecture (processes, applications, data model) and its further development as a control instrument
- Strategic modernization of the financial infrastructure focusing on efficiency, data quality, and automation
- Ensuring effective change management involving all relevant stakeholders
- Ensuring appropriate controls in IT and data security with financial relevance
- Quality assurance of external financial reporting (e.g., project accounting to authorities and donors)
- Responsibility for the annual DEZA reporting (financial counterpart)
Other areas of responsibility
- Tax exemption and compliance with tax requirements
- Handling of legacies and inheritances
- Professional exchange in relevant networks
- Supporting adjacent areas in insurance and finance-related issues
Ideally, you bring the following:
- Completed business studies with a focus on finance or comparable qualification (e.g., expert in accounting & controlling, certified auditor)
- Several years of leadership experience in a complex organization, ideally in the non-profit and/or international environment
- Sound knowledge of Swiss GAAP FER, OR, group accounting as well as foundation and non-profit law
- Experience in international financial management and governance structures
- Strategic and conceptual thinking combined with high operational implementation competence
- Strong analytical skills and high affinity for numbers
- Integrative, communicative leadership style
- High affinity for digitization and process optimization
- Very good German, French, and English skills in spoken and written form
We offer:
- A challenging and versatile role in a renowned NGO with national and international orientation
- Great scope for creativity and opportunities to contribute your own ideas
- A motivated and dynamic team
- Great flexibility regarding presence times and workplace
- Modern employment conditions
For further information, Kathrin Lampert, HR Business Partner, is available by phone at +41 44 360 88 00.
