The Role
As a Corporate Tax Director, you provide strategic leadership on tax matters, overseeing major client portfolios and ensuring compliance with UK tax regulations. You will drive business development, offer expert tax planning advice, and mentor senior team members. Your role focuses on delivering exceptional client service and advancing the firm's growth and reputation.
Core Skills
Client Focus
Take the lead on managing and building client relationships with Azets clients with responsibility for developing relationships on key clients
Identifies and delivers service improvements
Demonstrates a deep understanding of client underlying future needs
Understands current & future forces that will shape and influence clients' needs
Uses a variety of influence approaches for strategic impact
Makes decisions based on maintaining long term relationships
Delivers excellent client satisfaction as measured by relevant KPIs
Manages client complaints in accordance with Azets processes
Takes the lead on cross service line delivery on own client base.
Technical Excellence
Recognised as a technical expert
Provides oversight and takes responsibility for ensuring that team members possess the necessary skills, knowledge and behaviours required to deliver accurate, high quality work for our clients and assesses the team's ability to deal with future technical or regulatory developments and takes steps to address any skill gaps including managing talent / resource and software planning
Have a broad knowledge of the more technical aspects of other services lines – be able to spot and talk at a high level about matters outside of own service line
Thinks beyond own area to develop capability
Ensures that quality is beyond a minimum level, with adherence to key processes and ensuring appropriate training is undertaken
Commitment
Proactive leadership of tasks to achieve business plan
Creates and maintains positive environment
Able to look holistically at department to promote wellbeing, and a collaborative environment
Is able to pick up on the 'mood' of the business and take steps to raise team morale as appropriate
Leading by example and consistently setting high standards for professionalism and ethical behaviour
Champions the Azets brand, building on our portfolio of services, values, reputation, and market profile
Supports the continued development of a consistent and unified Azets brand, strategy and values and is able to challenge colleagues and clients who are not demonstrating these behaviours.
Attention to Detail
Encourages team to raise standards and eliminate errors
Tracks and acts on quality issues
Is transparent and shares information with colleagues which could benefit the business, working with the partners in the team
Is aware of the skills and abilities of those around them, communicating tasks clearly with deadlines and supporting through to completion
Communicates to the team the bigger picture and objectives of an assignment and is able to strike a balance between seeking further detail and an efficient and commercial output
Actively takes part in and contributes to the development of Azets quality monitoring processes in own part of the business.
Efficiency
Deals effectively with conflicting objectives, priorities and agendas
Draws upon organisational data, understanding of market trends, and latest thinking to identify and take forward ideas for improvements and efficiencies
Leads the way with digital transformation initiatives through clear understanding of the program and embedding throughout their team
Is able to critically assess effective use of time, for example ensuring all meetings have a defined purpose and agreed output.
Decision Making
Takes a dynamic and flexible approach to decision making, using live data to recognise when different approaches are required
Holds genuinely open discussions, listens to others views, and show a willingness to compromise
Is able to present a range of possible decision making options to stakeholders, highlighting the positive and negative implications of each to reach a decision
Is able to identify and extract relevant data to support a decision from a large volume and wide range of sources
Consistently demonstrates awareness and sound judgement on decisions which are able to be made autonomously and escalates those that cannot to more senior stakeholders
Actively reviews and adapts past decisions where data suggests original expectations are not being met.
Leading People
Communicates direction clearly and brings colleagues along on the journey balancing business priorities and people priorities with respect
Trusts and appropriately empowers team members
Promotes a culture of openness and trust
Actively looks for opportunities to develop others, gives responsibility to others and willingly delegates as appropriate
Comfortable in voicing opinions that may conflict with the status quo
Builds empathy and support to ensure buy-in and ownership of ideas
Always upholds and demonstrates integrity
Has oversight of wider team's development and their future career progression and leads the support strategies.
Leading Yourself
Is able to lead a team to achieve resolution of complex challenges
Stays true to leadership style even when under pressure
Can step outside comfort zone and actively pursues new challenges and opportunities that support the business
Lead by example by openly pursuing continuous personal and professional development and demonstrates self-awareness
Demonstrates resilience but is able to recognise own limitations and draws on and is accepting of support from own network when required.
Driving Business Growth
Strategically develops and refines own external network and shows evidence of winning work from this network for own team and for Azets more widely
Able to critically assess the value of business development efforts and takes steps to refine own and team strategies that are under performing
Leads and builds own client portfolio, demonstrating fee growth from existing services and evidence of successfully introducing new services
Can identify the commercial realities of a client engagement and is able to seek agreement across service lines on approach to fee setting and fee growth
Is able to articulate the value proposition for the services the team delivers to support fee growth
Uses chain of indirect influence. This may include the use of technical experts to help sell a concept by adding credibility
Takes the lead on ensuring minimum pricing initiatives are followed and is proactive in RRR reviews.
Living Our Values
New to Azets: Shows good understanding of our company values, and making good progress towards consistently demonstrating required behaviours
Existing Colleague: Consistently 'lives our values' - demonstrates expected behaviours in line with our company values
Technical Skills
Acts as an engagement lead on most tax assignments, including some complex and larger assignments with limited support from the tax partner. Able to anticipate issues and risks with tax engagements and take timely action to address these
Works with tax specialists and other service lines seamlessly to provide a joined up service to clients. Demonstrates appropriate oversight and responsibility as one of the main leads of the client relationship team, showing strong project management skills when required to co-ordinate teams to deliver projects
Proactively keeps on top of key developments across both the tax service line and the wider firm, to identify cross-selling opportunities for existing and new clients. Confident to discuss most areas of taxation with clients, bringing in appropriate tax specialists as appropriate and maximising cross-selling opportunities
Actively involved in supporting peers and partners with department strategy and future planning, having responsibility for a specific area within the department (for example, finance or people)
Leading the way for change, innovation and technological advances within the tax department, by using the most appropriate technologies and processes for tax assignments, and demonstrating where they can improve quality and efficiencies
Responsible for promoting quality controls within the tax department at a regional level
Works the managers to identify higher performers and supports development in line with Career Pathways to help retain key team members. Supports managers in addressing underperformance or inefficiencies within the team, and if required, performance improvement consultations
Actively supports the tax partners with recruitment and building a team to fit the requirements of the service line. Is able to forecast resource and development requirements and identify possible solutions
Continuously looking for opportunities to expand both internal & external networks, both in terms of potential referrers but also opportunities to showcase the team's service offerings (for example, presentations to external firms).
Qualifications
Holds a accountancy and/or tax qualification or qualified by experience (e.g. ATT/CTA/ACA/ACCA/CA).
Essential Experience
It is expected that the above core and technical skills will have been developed through study alongside work experience in an accountancy practice.