Share Schemes Manager, Mazars, London

Job Purpose

A high performing, entrepreneurial manager/assistant manager with share schemes experience is sought to join the Mazars LLP share schemes team, sitting within the national Specialist Tax team. The role will be based at the firm’s London office at Tower Hill and will also provide specialist support to the firm’s national and international client base.

The share schemes team is involved in the creation of tax efficient and commercially focused incentive structures for all business types (from large listed corporates to owner managed entrepreneurial businesses and private equity backed businesses). Projects also include advising multi-national clients on the UK implications of equity plans and working with colleagues in Mazars’ overseas offices in relation to international plans. Work also involves employment-related security tax risk reviews and share plan health-checks and DD, as well as advice on executive termination share claw-backs and EIS advisory.

A rapidly growing client base now provides a great opportunity for a talented, proactive advisor to join the team during a period of exciting development and growth for the practice. The successful candidate will be seeking to develop a deep functional specialism in share schemes across 3 key strategic markets: Entrepreneurial Business, Large & Listed and Financial Services and be motivated to follow a career path in this specialist discipline.

Strong project management skills and keen attention to detail are essential, in addition to technical excellence, to ensure that complex solutions are delivered on budget and on a timely basis and strong communication skills are required to build rapport internally (locally, nationally and internationally), with clients and referral partners.

Job Role

Service delivery and development
• Demonstrate an understanding of the full range of the firm's products, services and capabilities and takes an active role in lead generation (primarily internal and London market focus);
• Build an understanding of the potential for selling additional services to clients;
• Proactively participates in business development activities and generates ROI (vetted new work opportunities) from such activity.

Clients
• Build a rapport with the individual client and develops a clear and detailed understanding of the business and client expectations;
• Meet clients demands, keeping them up to date with progress and engenders trust and respect;
• Deal with a wide range of technical issues (raised internally and externally) and client situations;
• Provide intelligent and creative solutions to client tax issues both reactively and proactively;
• Write high quality tax reports, professionally presented documents, with close attention to detail and minimising review point correction by senior reviewer.

Reporting into senior managers (both in London and regionally):

Implementation
• Responsible for planning and performing consultancy assignments in respect of equity incentive arrangements (EMI, CSOP, SIP, growth shares, non-tax advantaged options and other bespoke plans);
• Preparation of all plan documentation and associated documentation on behalf of our clients;
• Act as a first point of contact on specific projects for any queries from the client and as a point of contact for queries raised by colleagues internally;
• Demonstrate the ability to assess potential solutions and make recommendations accordingly;
• Accurately interpret advice obtained from other specialists and questions where required
• Present solutions to increasingly complex technical issues;
• Demonstrate an awareness of technical risk through well supported research.

Client take- on / risk management
• Has a sound awareness and adherence to the firm's risk management processes and procedures;
• Ensure compliance with internal procedures including the completion of take-on;
• Ensure bills are raised and costs are collected on a timely basis;
• Mitigate risk through review and involvement of senior people;
• Able to use initiative to suggest improvements to internal processes.

Technical Competence
• Demonstrate sufficient technical knowledge to supervise relevant areas of work;
• Seen as a reference point on particular technical issues;
• Areas of expertise include standard tax efficient structures (EMI, CSOP, SIP) and more bespoke incentive schemes and related planning (e.g. Growth Shares and EIS/SEIS).

People
• Work effectively with all members of the team, building the confidence and respect of peers and subordinates;
• Appraise and mentors associates giving regular feedback, timely appraisals and provides development opportunities and performance management of juniors;
• Manage a team of both internal staff and external advisors on specific projects;
• Provide on the job training to juniors, peers, secondees and other colleagues;
• Actively seek opportunities to attend training courses (internal and external) to develop technical and personal skills and contributes to internal training initiatives where appropriate;
• Demonstrate a clear appetite for self-development through the appraisal and personal development plan processes. Reviews work afterwards for learning points.
• Is able to quickly establish themselves as a ‘go-to’ expert who delivers reliably and proactively

Operations and results
• Ensure bills are raised and costs are collected on a timely basis;
• Manage work in progress to ensure utilisation and recoverability targets can be met;
• Monitor invoices raised and cash collected in a timely manner to ensure aged debtors do not escalate;
• Meet or exceeds client delivery timescales.
• Very much an advisory focus with some DD/transactional support and some national supervision of ERS compliance and input into more complex compliance cases particularly in terms of risk management and advisory opportunity development.

Person Specification

Essential
• ATT or CTA or newly qualified share schemes solicitor
• Sound technical knowledge with extensive experience dedicated to employees share schemes work, preferably in a large accountancy firm
• Strong drafting skills and very close eye for detail.
• Project management experience.
• Client facing skills
• Advanced Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel skills (for financial modelling)
• Related tax consultancy and compliance experience and wider employment tax awareness
• Managerial skills (including coaching and performance management)

Desirable
• Financial modelling / share valuation / company secretarial experience / IFRS 2 reporting awareness
• Foreign share plan knowledge (RSU, ISO, ESPP, NQSO, SAR etc)
• EIS / SEIS knowledge and experience