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 robust plus.

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