Travel and Expenses - Senior Manager

Nscale•Houston, TX

About The Position

Nscale is hiring a hands-on leader to own travel and expense (T&E) operations end to end across a growing, multi-entity business whose employees travel across the UK, US, Europe and APAC. The role leads the T&E team and oversees expense and card approvals, employee support, reimbursements, corporate card programs, policy enforcement, month-end controls, employee and approver data, vendor relationships, and T&E onboarding for acquisitions and new entities. The successful candidate will help ensure accurate, timely T&E data for the general ledger, month-end close, audits and leadership reporting, while developing operations from transactional processing toward exception handling and continuous improvement. The role works closely with Treasury, Accounting, Finance Systems and the People team. It manages day-to-day relationships with Payhawk and Navan and contributes to platform decisions, while Finance Systems owns configuration, integrations and access roles. The position also owns the global T&E policy and its consistent application, including compliance with applicable local tax requirements.

Requirements

At least 7 years of experience in travel and expense operations, including team leadership.
Hands-on experience with modern T&E platforms such as Payhawk, Navan, Concur, Expensify, Ramp or Brex.
Experience running corporate card programs across multiple entities and currencies.
Solid understanding of month-end close, including accruals, reconciliations and general ledger coding.
Working knowledge of T&E tax treatment and compliance across the UK, US and Europe.
A track record of applying policy consistently with senior stakeholders while remaining helpful and approachable.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a high-growth or multi-entity business.
NetSuite experience.

Responsibilities

Lead, hire and develop the T&E team, including open Analyst roles; establish weekly queue reviews, manual approval quality checks, aging visibility and coverage plans.
Develop team capability, shifting operations toward exception handling and continuous improvement.
Own expense and card approval queues across entities, the T&E mailbox, and responses to employee and manager queries.
Set and report service levels for review turnaround, query response and reimbursement timing.
Coordinate reimbursement runs with Treasury across entities and currencies, and use platform controls to identify out-of-policy items before they reach the queue.
Run the corporate and purchasing card programs, including issuance, approvals, limits, virtual cards, renewals, cancellations, transaction submission deadlines, card freezes and unfreezes, and accurate card registers.
Own and consistently enforce the global T&E policy and related policies, including a documented exception process, monthly reporting, and review of hotel and travel rate caps using booking data.
Design role- and location-specific travel rules, beginning with a deployment travel policy for on-site teams.
Ensure policies and processes comply with HMRC, IRS and other local tax requirements, including per diems, benefits-in-kind and reimbursement rules.
Ensure T&E spending reaches the general ledger on time and is correctly coded by entity, department and category before syncing to NetSuite.
Work with Accounting on explainable T&E movements and a documented, complete and accurate accrual process.
Reconcile card statements and travel bookings, including matching Navan bookings to the actual traveler in Payhawk.
Maintain audit evidence, including approval trails, delegate and out-of-office approver reporting, card registers and exception logs; check for duplicate, fraudulent or non-compliant claims and support audits.
Reconcile HRIS data against Payhawk and Navan weekly for joiners, movers, leavers, departments, entities and approvers; work with Finance Systems to automate data flows and address recurring errors.
Manage day-to-day relationships with Payhawk and Navan, including escalations, service levels, business reviews and product roadmap input.
Work with Treasury on card funding and travel credit facilities; define business requirements and test platform changes.
Assess whether the current T&E technology stack can scale and contribute to renewals and future platform decisions.
Integrate acquired companies, employees, cards and policies into Nscale's T&E stack and establish T&E for new entities and countries.
Partner with the People team to onboard new joiners to T&E from day one and provide practical guidance and FAQs.