BU Finance Director- MENA
The Coca-Cola Export Corporation - MENA
Total years of experience :32 years, 9 months
Leading planning, consolidation and reporting activities for its Business Units (BU), as well as partnering with Region Finance Managers (RFM) and BU Leadership teams to review analysis on performance and Risks & Opportunities of the BU. Ensure update of DoA and accounting guidelines are applied throughout the BU. Regular review and remedial actions on P&L and Balance sheet in coordination with Finance team. Oversee internal and external Audits and follow up on remedial actions identified. Key contributor to the Strategic Business Plan for MENA. Reporting to MENABU CFO.
• Re-evaluated and reorganized Planning & Analysis (P&A) roles to create efficiencies, backups and facilitated a platform for sharing best practices in P&A. (Leading a team of 7 Region P&A Managers)
• Implemented Hyperion-Oracle across MENA BU and part of the Transformation team on various new Corporate led programs.
Focus on Marketing Investments and Productivity to drive down costs and ensure guidelines are applied throughout BU working closely with the Marketing team.
• Institutionalized Power BI analytical reports to track performance with various KBIs, sourcing data from Retail audit, Market share volume and value, Marketing spend, GP, Volume sales, Numeric and Weighted distribution etc. Customized based on business needs.
• Created a Direct Marketing Expenditure (DME) resource allocation workstream to shift mindsets and facilitate transformative growth. Amplified Marketing dollars by reducing $40MM Enabling DME mix from 30% to 20% across MENA.
• Reprioritized Marketing spend - Zero Based Work (ZBW). Portfolio managed limited resources based on identifying Region opportunity and ability to execute.
Reporting to Finance Manager Middle East Region for Finance role and General Manager for Operational role (Iran). Handling four key countries Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon and Palestine. Additionally responsible for Middle East Region Actuals, Forecasting and Business planning, consolidation and submission to corporate office in US and leadership team.
Joined as Accounts Executive for the Saudi operations in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Promoted to Accounting Manager in the year 2000, for the Middle East and North Africa Division and transferred to Bahrain. Lateral move to Senior Financial Analyst in 2003 with commercial finance responsibilities. Promoted to Financial Services Manager in 2005 and currently based in Dubai, Middle East Business Unit . Responsible for Operations -Iran from 2010.
Financial Services Manager- Middle East Business Unit Jan 2005 to date
•Preparation of Business Plan and Strategic Plans with active involvement with operations and marketing teams.
•Continuous drive through of process improvements in relation to budgeting, forecasting and reporting.
•Cost benchmarking undertaken for Regional bottlers and worked closely with Supply Chain and Operations on sourcing efficiencies.
•Ensure compliance with Corporate policies, procedures which is based on SOX and manage Internal Auditors.
•Managing effectively, the relationships between functions, bottlers and Business unit.
•Responsible for Revenue, Costing and Marketing expenses -control, analysis, reporting and forecasts.
•Concentrate incidence pricing and cost revenue analysis to base various decisions.
•Commercial Finance for Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Kuwait, Yemen and Iran.
•Finance lead for New product development.
Major Achievements
Worked closely with Market Area Managers to develop Yemen consolidation strategy and negotiated concentrate price increase with Bottler CFOs in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia ( Price increase after 20 years)
Various successful implementations of accounting systems during my tenure as Accounting Manager and Senior Financial Analyst.
Effectively transferred financial management from 7 field locations (U.K. / Saudi Arabia/ Lebanon/ UAE/ Qatar/ Oman and Bahrain) to Bahrain in 2000, down-sized due to Coca-Cola Strategic Organization Alignment to set up a Financial Service Centre for the MENA Division
• Accounts P&L, B/S, and Ledger scrutiny, Inventory Control, maintaining Creditors Ledger, depreciation, costing, tab on accruals and provisions, submitting financials on a monthly basis to Tokyo for consolidation and preparing reports for senior Management.
• Finance L/C documentation and negotiation, remittances, borrowings, liaising with Banks, cash flows, A/R & A/P scrutiny, Bank reconciliations, Petty Cash and other financial aspects.
• Marketing Services Analysis of Sales, pricing and Inventory, forecasting, consolidation of Budgets in co-ordination with various marketing departments to produce the final Budget for the Company. Responsible for organizing the annual business plan meeting which was a venue for introduction of new products, order taking and to re-enforce company objectives to agents in the Middle East.
Major Projects /Achievements
Responsible for implementation of Procurement Management Info System which helped the whole organization understand the value chain and resulted in efficient ordering and focused sales efforts.
Convened the monthly product sales-inventory-profitability meeting which brought the marketing and sales team in the spotlight for performance /non-performance.
Iran- Tehran- Six-month assignments to manage the Audit and systematize the reporting at the representative office and thereafter follow up visits.
Morocco- Casablanca- Traveled frequently for initial set up of Branch operations for the Finance and Accounts function. Financial modeling which included forecasting and fund requirement. Setting up invoicing procedures. Liaising with local banks and factoring companies. Supervising the IT infrastructure for WAN connectivity with the Head office in Dubai.
Sony Broadcast and Professional (U.K.) - Maintained accounts for SB&P, which has a branch in Dubai.
Computerized work environment. Updating of accounts for various branches, Preparing T/B, P&L, B/S, Bank Recos., Ledger Scrutiny, Inter- branch reconciliations, Inventory Control. Liaising with Auditors during audits and answering their queries.
High School was completed in Indian School of Bahrain. Then moved to India for completion of graduation in Accounting and Auditing from R.A. Podar College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai from Mumbai University