Are you a Chartered Accountant who enjoys going beyond accounting and wants to play a key role in shaping the financial engine of a high-growth, AI-first company?

Pepper is looking for a Manager – Financial Controller to own controllership, financial reporting, compliance, FP&A;, and business insights as we scale across entities and geographies.

### About Pepper

Pepper is a content-led growth engine built for the AI age. We bring together strategy, technology, and creative talent to help brands accelerate content velocity, improve visibility across LLMs, search, and social, and drive predictable, compounding organic growth.

Our flagship AI platform, Atlas, uses autonomous SEO, GEO, and content agents—with human-in-the-loop quality—to help brands stay discoverable, trusted, and cited across AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

Today, Pepper powers content-led growth for 2,500+ industry leaders, including Amazon, Google, HSBC, Atlassian, Unilever, ITC, and Instacart.

### What you’ll own

This is a controllership-first role with significant FP&A; and strategic finance ownership.

? Controllership, Audit & Compliance

Own month-end close, statutory reporting, audits, and the compliance calendar end-to-end

Drive consolidation across entities and geographies, including intercompany reconciliations and eliminations

- Maintain an audit-ready finance data room for diligence, investor reporting, and fundraising

? Controls, Processes & Systems

Design, document, and strengthen the internal control framework

Own and optimise Zoho Books

Automate reconciliations, reporting, and compliance workflows using technology and AI

Build and mentor a strong accounting team with high standards for review and documentation

? FP&A;, AOP & Forecasting

Own the Annual Operating Plan across revenue, costs, headcount, and cash

Lead monthly forecasting and rolling reforecast cycles





- Build driver-based financial models and scenario plans for hiring, pricing, and growth investments

? MIS, P&L; & Business Reviews

Own the monthly MIS pack covering actuals vs. budget vs. forecast

Translate variances into clear business drivers and actionable insights

Prepare board and investor reporting across P&L;, cash, cohorts, and KPIs

Track burn and identify opportunities for optimisation

- Evaluate ROI across sales and marketing investments

? Unit Economics & Strategic Finance

Analyse customer-level gross margins across segments, geographies, content types, and industries

Track NRR, GRR, cohorts, churn, and quality of revenue

Identify drivers of contribution margin and EBITDA and work with teams to improve profitability

Build business cases for new programs, services, and pricing initiatives

- Partner with leadership and cross-functional teams on strategic projects

### What we’re looking for

✅ CA with 4–6 years of post-qualification experience, with strong experience in controllership, accounting, audit, and compliance

✅ Proven ownership of month-end close, statutory financial statements, and annual audit cycles

✅ Strong knowledge of Ind AS; IFRS/US GAAP exposure is a plus

✅ Hands-on experience with GST, TDS, Income Tax, and ROC compliance; transfer pricing/FEMA exposure is an advantage

✅ Strong FP&A; capabilities across AOP, budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, MIS, and board reporting

✅ Ability to build robust financial models from scratch

✅ Experience with Zoho Books or another accounting ERP

✅ Advanced Excel skills; SQL/BI experience is a plus

✅ Comfortable using AI tools to automate finance processes, including reporting, reconciliation, forecasting, and analysis

✅ Excellent communication skills, with the ability to make complex financial information easy for business leaders to understand

⭐ Experience in a venture-backed startup (Series A–D) is a solid plus.

📌 Manager – Financial Controller (Mumbai)
🏢 Pepper
📍 Mumbai