American Express - Service Delivery Leader - Global Accounting Policy & Advisory - M&A

The Global Accounting Policy & Advisory (GAPA) team is a part of Global Consumer, Small Business, Merchant and Network Services (GCSMN) Business Advisory & Governance Organization. The GCSMN Business Advisory team is the single point of contact for the Business Unit leaders and Lead Financial Officers (LFO), providing strategic advisory support on transactions and new product launches and enabling business growth through timely, accurate and effective accounting and financial process design consultation. The Governance team owns, develops and delivers technical accounting advisory and monitors and reports on SOX compliance. The GAPA team broadly provides technical accounting guidance to the BA and Accounting and Reporting controllers related to various business transactions, new product rollouts and initiatives. The GAPA team also monitors developments in emerging accounting standards, assessing the impact on the company and develops and updates American Express Finance Policies for both U.S. GAAP and IFRS. For Mergers & Acquisitions (- M&A- ) related activities, the GAPA team provides accounting and financial deal support to Corporate Development and business leaders for acquisitions, equity investments and divestiture transactions on a prioritized basis. The team, working with LFOs and other Controllership teams, also leads the planning and implementation of Finance integration of acquired companies and separation of divested businesses. In addition, the team oversees the company's goodwill and long-lived assets impairment testing. The team's responsibilities include performing financial due diligence on target companies, evaluating accounting for proposed transaction structures, performing valuations of intangibles, working with other Controllership teams to carve-out balance sheet and P&Ls for potential divestitures and preparing data room financial content for bidders. At the business line level, the team works with LFOs, other Controllership teams and staff groups Global HR, Global Business Services (GBS), GCO, Technology, Compliance etc. to develop and implement detailed finance integration plans for acquisitions, separation plans for divestitures and implementation plans for joint ventures.

Job Responsibilities:

Responsibilities Include, but are not limited to:

- Support AXP's Corporate Development team & various finance teams by providing technical accounting advisory support on M&A transactions.

- Participate in due diligence process for new transactions initiated by Corporate Development team and provide accounting consultation through review of investment strategy and financial information of investees

- Manage quarterly impairment assessment of strategic cost or equity method investments in partnership with Corporate Development

- Execute quarterly review process of goodwill and intangible balances in AXP's footnote disclosures and BHC filings

- Lead the annual goodwill impairment review process for each of AXP's reporting units in collaboration with the various finance teams

- Ensure compliance with and testing of controls surrounding various processes related to goodwill and intangible assets

- Cultivate and maintain strong partnerships with various business partners across the finance organization including accounting & reporting, business advisory, business unit controllership, corporate development and decision support teams

- Develop and conduct training sessions for various business partners

Offer of employment with American Express is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background verification check, subject to applicable laws and regulations.

Qualifications:

Required Skills/Qualifications:

- 6 + years of cumulative accounting/business experience

- Technical accounting advisory experience preferred

- Mergers and acquisitions experience preferred

- Bachelor's degree in Accounting/Finance

- Strong oral & written communication skills

- Excellent relationship management skills with broad spectrum of business partners

- Demonstrated strong organizational and project management skills