Finance Director
Fork Media
Total years of experience :16 years, 2 Months
Responsible for leading the Finance team at Fork Media Group across 9 entities in 6 countries. Responsible for streamlining and smooth functioning of Fork Media’s finance operations.
Setting up and leading the financial planning and analysis team to provide senior management with accurate and timely MIS of business performance for effective decision making.
Responsible for business controllership and cost management. Assess monthly variations in revenues and expenses and bring stability to the Group as well as product level P&L.
Strong focus on cash flows with daily collection monitoring and payables management to ensure reduction in average debtors ageing from 170 days to 120 days, with reduction in creditor ageing from 150 days to 130 days.
Manage and lead the identification of, and approaches to Banks and NBFCs for new debt funding and re-financing; including identification of overseas funding sources.
Responsible for understanding and negotiation of term sheets and facility agreements and other legal documents related to facilities.
Manage due diligence requests from existing and prospective investors, research and gather necessary information and prepare a comprehensive response.
Identifying and registering tax and compliance efficient corporate structures for international operations, including the set-up of their internal operational frameworks and integration to the Group’s finance operations.
Nielsen
Set-up the Planning and Analysis team for Middle East region to cater to the increased demand for real
time information from commercial teams.
Initiated reporting on various performance matrices such as cost forecasting, bullet train analysis, mega deals tracker,
revenue walk analysis, revenue per FTE analysis, FTE walk, etc.
Provided strategic support to commercial teams helping achieve 15% QoQ revenue growth and a $1.5M EBITDA
overachievement from plan.
Lead budgeting process for commercial teams, including budget preparation, revenue target-setting, cost
consolidation strategies and ultimate consolidation to the group’s overall budget.
Additional support to AME regional team as well as adhoc support to FP&A teams of other markets in the AME region
Managed all revenue processes for the local markets, including proposal pipeline system support, sales orders and contracts, revenue recognition and collections.
Co-ordinated with group HQ to set-up and implement an automated proposal pipeline tracking system based on systems run in South Asian markets. Automation in the tracking system helped reduce forecasting errors by ~72%.
Responsible for the controls on revenue processes, revenue recognition and control on audit documentation.
Led country-level accounting teams to rectify qualifications made by group HQ internal audit committee with respect to revenue management and recognition processes.
Clarify USGAAP rules and contract interpretation, and provide training to commercial teams to ensure smooth run of revenue processes, from contract creation to billing and collection.
Strong focus on cash flow and collections driving down average AR aging from 115 days to 92 days.
Nielsen
Incorporated and set up an LLC in Qatar with 100% FDI and carried out legalization and regularization of group
entities of Nielsen group in Bahrain and Oman.
Set-up the operational and internal accounting framework, including SAP set-up, of the LLC established in Qatar.
Responsible for the overall Finance and Compliance Function in these 3 countries.
Driving legalization and regularization from a foreign exchange, corporate law and tax perspective
KPMG
Managing Indian corporate tax and foreign exchange compliances for MNC clients’ operations in India.
Represented clients before Commissioner (Appeals) and the Appellate Tribunal leading to favourable
results in several contentious issues.
Co-ordinated with client’s operations and finance teams to collate and submit relevant details during tax audits.
Handled inbound investments projects and other transaction specific advisory assignments.
Prepared advisory reports on corporate tax and foreign exchange laws and regulations relevant to client’s specific
business model.
Handled a diverse portfolio of clients from the oil and gas, pharma and defense sectors.
Manage cross-functional teams (corporate tax, statutory audit and transfer pricing) to drive the development and
presentation of final project deliverables and build stronger client relationships.
Chartered Accountants
Corporate and individual tax compliance, including income-tax and withholding tax.
Handling and finalizing statutory audit of corporates.
Passed in the 1st attempt Relevant Coursework: Direct Taxation Laws, Indirect Taxation Laws, Allied Laws, IFRS, Advanced Accountancy, Advanced Financial & Management Accounting, Auditing and Operations Research
Scorecard: 87.13% Relevant Coursework: Cost Accounting, Business Economics, International Trade, Financial Management, Taxation Laws, Allied Laws, Business Communication, Marketing, Industrial Psychology Skills Corporate Finance • Managerial Finance • Reporting & Analysis • Cost Control • Financial Audits • Corporate Tax • International Tax