Sr. Director, Tax Accounting

Your Role

The Senior Director, Tax Accounting leads enterprise tax strategy, compliance, and specialty accounting across the family of companies, ensuring accurate execution, regulatory compliance, and disciplined risk management.  This role reports to the Vice President, Controller for Ascendiun and the family of companies. The role and team create enterprise value by turning complex tax requirements into disciplined execution, sound decisions, and continuity across critical tax processes.

Our leadership model is about developing great leaders at all levels and creating opportunities for our people to grow – personally, professionally, and financially. We are looking for leaders that are energized by creative and critical thinking, building and sustaining high-performing teams, getting results the right way, and fostering continuous learning.  

Your Work 

In this role, you will: 

• Set and lead enterprise-wide tax strategy, compliance operations, and the multi-year roadmap for the organization and its family of companies, defining priorities, funding, and governance to deliver accurate provision, compliance, and internal control outcomes while ensuring adherence to federal, state, and local tax requirements and enabling growth across expanding markets                                
• Own enterprise tax risk management and executive decision support by assessing financial and tax impacts, ensuring timely and compliant corporate tax filings and other mandated tax-related information reporting, defining success metrics, and guiding business decisions across the family of companies to mitigate legal, financial, tax, and reputational exposure and deliver business-case outcomes in a highly regulated environment                                
• Monitor federal, state, and local legislative and regulatory developments, assess potential impacts on the family of companies, and proactively communicate changes and recommended actions to leadership and impacted business units                                
• Set the strategic tax roadmap for the enterprise, anticipating regulatory changes, identifying tax optimization opportunities, and aligning tax planning with long-term business objectives across the family of companies                                
• Lead and oversee the enterprise interactions with federal, state, and local taxing authorities, ensuring timely, accurate, and well-supported responses to audits, inquiries, and regulatory communications while safeguarding the organization’s financial integrity, compliance posture, and reputation                                
• Serve as the enterprise tax leader and cross-functional advisor to Finance, Legal, HR, Treasury, Operations, Payroll, and Technology by aligning stakeholders on complex regulatory and business matters, resolving escalations, securing commitments, and driving decisions that strengthen financial integrity, compliance, and business outcomes                                
• Benchmark industry best practices and emerging technology with regards to tax filing for the family of companies
• Translate opportunities into a prioritized transformation automation portfolio with defined ROI, risk reduction, and internal control improvements                                
• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing tax team by recruiting top talent, providing coaching and mentorship, establishing clear performance expectations, and fostering a culture of accountability, continuous learning, and professional growth                                
   

Your Knowledge and Experience 

• Requires a Bachelor's in Accounting, Finance, or related field; or equivalent experience
• Requires a minimum of 12 years prior relevant tax/accounting experience
• Requires a minimum of 8 years of prior people management experience with direct responsibility for supervising, coaching, and evaluating direct reports                                
• Certified Public Accountant, Certified Management Accountant, or other related certification highly desired                               
• Prior healthcare or insurance experience a plus

Hybrid

This role requires employees to be in-office based on our hybrid workplace model, balancing purposeful in-person collaboration with flexibility. For most teams, this means coming into the office two days each week. Employees living more than 50 miles from an office location will work with their manager to determine in-office time based on business need.

About Blue Shield of California and the Ascendiun Family of Companies

As of January 2025, Blue Shield of California became a subsidiary of Ascendiun. Ascendiun is a nonprofit corporate entity that is the parent to a family of organizations including Blue Shield of California and its subsidiary, Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan; Altais, a clinical services company; and Stellarus, a company designed to scale healthcare solutions. Together, these organizations are referred to as the Ascendiun Family of Companies.

At Ascendiun, we believe in a brighter future for healthcare. As the parent to a family of four innovative healthcare companies, we’re reimagining what’s possible. Ascendiun is guided by the goal of transforming a dysfunctional American health care system into one worthy of our family and friends and sustainably affordable for everyone.

To achieve our mission, we foster an environment where all employees can thrive and contribute fully to address the needs of the various communities we serve. We are committed to creating and maintaining a supportive workplace that upholds our values and advances our goals.

Our Values:

• Honest. We hold ourselves to the highest ethical and integrity standards. We build trust by doing what we say we're going to do and by acknowledging and correcting where we fall short.
• Human. We strive to listen and communicate effectively, and showing empathy by understanding others’ perspectives. 
• Courageous. We stand up for what we believe in and are committed to the hard work necessary to achieve our ambitious goals. 

Physical Requirements:

Office Environment - roles involving part to full time schedule in Office Environment. Based in our physical offices and work from home office/deskwork - Activity level: Sedentary, frequency most of work day.

Please click here for further physical requirement detail. 

Equal Employment Opportunity:

External hires must pass a background check/drug screen. Qualified applicants with arrest records and/or conviction records will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with Federal, State and local laws, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status or disability status and any other classification protected by Federal, State and local laws.