Tax Director - Media

UK and EMEA Director of Tax

Discovery Communications, Inc. is the world’s number-one non-fiction media company reaching more than 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers in more than 170 countries.

Discovery empowers people to explore their world and satisfy their curiosity through 100-plus worldwide networks, led by Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery Science and Discovery HD. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 12 Discovery brands reach 199 million cumulative subscribers in 103 countries with programming customized in 24 languages.

Role Summary
This newly created role reporting into the Director – General Accounting and managing a team of 2 supports the UK and EMEA business, with a current tax presence in 14 countries. The key goals of the role are to ensure Discovery complies with all tax regulatory and reporting requirements in it’s operating jurisdictions, while minimizing the overall tax expense.

Responsibilities
•Manage all aspects of tax compliance and tax reporting for Discovery’s UK and EMEA operations. This includes responsibility for income tax filings, tax audits, withholding tax requirements, VAT, employment taxes and other indirect taxes.
•Monitor changes to the business across UK and EMEA and work with Corporate Tax team to ensure transfer pricing methodologies and documentation are appropriate.
•Support the VP International Tax in the Corporate Tax team in areas of tax strategy, structuring and planning.
•Support the Corporate Tax team to meet all internal reporting and accounting requirements.
•Work closely with external tax consultants in UK and EMEA and ensure proactive consideration of business related issues, assessment of tax risks and compliance with tax requirements.
•Involvement of local country Finance teams as necessary
•Review and consider cost and efficiency savings across UK and EMEA regions, and assess the commerciality of tax planning initiatives from US parent and from external advisers.
•Manage tax team of 2 (Tax Manager and Tax Accountant) to ensure all tax compliance requirements and processes are correct and appropriate.
•Centralise UK / EMEA tax compliance reporting and requirements in London, as appropriate, and ensure central visibility and control of all tax obligations and requirements.

Requirements
•Substantial advanced tax experience and broad knowledge of the following:
•EMEA tax compliance and audits
•Tax forecasting
•Foreign tax credit and cash repatriation planning.
•UK/US GAAP accounting for income taxes
•VAT, employment taxes and other non-income tax issues.
•Excellent oral and written communication skills.
•Excellent tax research skills.
•Interact effectively with the management team, corporate partners and members of the global finance team
•Ability to clearly communicate goals and motivate internal and external constituents with confidence.
•A superior work ethic and a dedication to the highest work quality and job excellence.
•Demonstrated ability to contribute to a culture of excellence, integrity and accountability.
•Willingness to travel
•Ability to influence stakeholders
•Diplomatic
•Willingness to work within matrix reporting structure
•Able to function in a changing environment
•Ability to act assertively

Felix Meller at Investigo is acting as a recruitment agent on behalf of Discovery Communications, Inc.