Director, Head - Finance New Business and Accounting Policy & Assurance Group, APAC
Credit Suisse AG
Total years of experience :17 years, 4 months
2011 - Jul 2012 Credit Suisse AG Singapore
Director, Head - Finance New Business and Accounting Policy & Assurance Group, APAC
Finance New Business
• Led a small team of Finance specialists in implementing new businesses and products across all legal entities in Asia
• Functioned as Program Manager for all ongoing New Business projects on behalf of Financial Accounting; worked closely with (central) New Business, CFO Change, PC, PC Change and Ops as well as Business in ensuring new products / venture launch are as planned
• Major project - I was the Finance stream lead in the migration of Clariden Leu Asian operations into Credit Suisse, covering front-to-back Finance operations, practices and systems for both banks. This project concluded in July 2012.
Accounting Policy & Assurance Group
• Led a small team of specialists in supporting Controllers and Business in technical accounting matters, as well as rolling out new accounting policies
2005 - 2011 Macquarie Singapore
Head of Finance - South East Asia
Joined Macquarie's operations in Singapore at the start of the growth phase - 110 employees when I joined to approx 400.
General & administration
• First point of contact for Finance in SEA, working closely with business heads from all businesses in the region.
• 'Business Owner' of all projects within Finance SEA, working with various Project Managers managing individual projects
• Integrating Finance teams in SEA, and later integrating the teams with GFS (the Group's service centre) team in India
• Migrated Finance function for 3 businesses from Sydney
• Revamping Operational Risk Management procedures within Finance by building COSO checklist etc.
• Rolled out Electronic Payment System with a view to decrease long term AP cost
• Built and shaped a brand new team of 4 in Jakarta; managed teams in KL and Bangkok and be the "face of Finance" to broking business covering Manila
• Coached 7 accountants-in-training for ACCA and ICAA
• Responsible for departmental budgets as well as helping with business budgets
• Helped develop and test BCP for all Macquarie offices in SEA
• Responsible for rolling out various new IFRS / AIFRS across Asia, assessing differences with local GAAPs and coordinating adoption with Corporate Reporting in Sydney and local LEC
• Led IFRS conversion in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia
• First point of contact on any IFRS issues for Finance Asia
• Present and explain financials to all Board of Directors of most active legal entities.
Business Performance Management
• Worked with individual business heads to design and provide reports that are of value to the Business
• Directly involved in designing and implementing Macquarie Private Wealth Asia (MPWA) 's MIS system, specifically regarding source data, timing, formatting and report design
• Helped businesses with budgets
• Validated performance forecasts from business to be used in any new business proposals as well as recapitalisations
Business Support
• Set up Finance functions for multiple businesses in Singapore
• Involved in a listed Macquarie fund's due diligence work on various infrastructure asset acquisitions around the world
• Involved in the setting up of the private wealth business in Singapore.
• Involved in setting up and providing accounting guidance over various other businesses and new products including Funds Management, Indian Futures trading, ELN issuance, tax arbitrage structures, etc.
• Work with Risk Management and Business Compliance on areas of mutual interest, including Ops Risk and regulatory capital impact.
• Sat on the Board of Directors for various Group companies with full fiduciary duties.
• Major project involved setting up a Wholesale bank branch in Singapore. This involved representing Finance in the Steering Committee, working with various Divisions and business lines to ensure all information are captured for regulatory reporting automation. The bank branch went Live in February 2011.
Products / Activities
• Equities - derivatives and cash, prop trades, underwriting
• Fixed income, fx, rates, commodities derivatives
• Real Estate investments including REITS
• Leasing - finance, operating, hybrids
• Private banking
1999 - 2005 KPMG Singapore
Manager - Audit
General and Administrative
* Supervise and coach teams on audit assignments in various industries, mainly Banking and Financial Institutions with special focus on private banks.
* Delivered lectures for the department covering, inter-alia, FRS39 and Islamic Finance basics.
* In charge of maintaining, administrating and a 'super user' of KPMG's Bank Survey, a KPMG product supplying financial data of all banks in Singapore over an open platform to subscribers.
http://www.banksurvey.kpmg.com.sg
Special assignments
* Review controls and test data accuracy of multi-location / global processing, involving multi-layered bookings;
* Due diligence review on an Indonesian bank
* Review of compliance with foreign laws and regulations, including: 1 Banking audit for the Swiss Federal Banking Commission;
2 Regulatory audit for the Dutch De Nederlandsche Bank; and 3 Qualifying Intermediary audit for the US Internal Revenue Service.
* Assist and review of migration exercise of financial data from Singapore GAAP to IFRS in preparation for full IFRS adoption;
* Implementation of FRS39 across the whole client organisation
* Ascertaining compliance with updated MAS Notices and Directives
1996 - 1999 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Malaysia
Auditor
* Industries covered
o Manufacturing, Hospitality, Transportation, Construction and Trading (general)
* Other responsibilities: o In charge of training audit staff on the Firm's auditing software AS/2 and auditing SAP financial records
o Ad-hoc firm-wide maintenance of computer hardware and software
1995 - 1996 University of Wales Cardiff, Wales Master of Business Administration Distinction
1991 - 1995 The University of Manchester Manchester, England B.A. (Econ.) Accounting and Finance Honours
1990 - 1991 Abingdon School Oxfordshire, England A - Levels (Oxford & Cambridge) Business Studies, Mathematics and Physics