Head of Audit
Azizi Developments
مجموع سنوات الخبرة :25 years, 9 أشهر
Heading Azizi Developments’ audit department and reporting to the Chairman and CEO with overall responsibility of governance, controls and oversight of projects’ development and construction, marketing, sales, facility management and support functions including the PMO, HR, finance, sales operations, legal, admin, IT etc.
Key Achievements
- Organizational restructuring through time and cost study resulting in closure, merger, head count reduction of departments resulting in savings of over AED 5 million a year.
- Cost reduction & budgetary controls - concurrent pre-audit of all costs, expenses and financial transactions resulting is 400%+ ROI on the departmental cost to the company. Monitoring of budgets and actual spending of the Azizi developments and group companies.
- Processes, policies and procedures’ enhancement in marketing to leads and leads to sales process resulting in better control and plugging revenue leakages.
- Established departmental Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) with clear expectations and monitoring dashboards.
- Responsible for bi-monthly Performance Management of sales staff resulting in significant workforce reduction without any adverse impact on sales.
- Departmental audits & investigations - carrying out departmental audits with focus on control deficiencies, cost optimization and control enhancements.
- Salesforce CRM implementation - leading the sales force implementation issues and providing interdepartmental support, review and recommendation.
- MIS - Daily financial reporting of sales and collections to the board and weekly dashboards.
Managing a boutique advisory firm based in Dubai with focus on Business Transformation / Re-structuring and Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) activities mainly in the RE and hospitality sector. Additional services include corporate advisory, financial modeling and analytics.
Key Achievements
- Process Restructuring of the complete life cycle of Real Estate Developments (from idea stage feasibility analysis through development, design, procurement, construction and transfer to asset management) of Union Properties PJSC with several landmark developments in Dubai, UAE; established corporate governance including corporate structure, authority delegation, roles & responsibility matrix, budgeting, cost management on projects, processes, policies and procedures and dashboards to enable it to successfully manage multi-billion projects.
- Development feasibility studies for the Asset Management arm of an Emirate’s Government in the UAE for industrial & warehousing complex, labor accommodation, retail and office and residential developments.
- Advising on private investments in UAE’s leading coffeeshop chain’s franchise in India, a tourism business in the UAE and feasibility study for an airline catering company in KSA.
- CFO and fund-raising support to a fast growing and leading tech startup in the road freight logistics in the UAE including financial reporting IFRS and VAT implementation.
Led SAB Group, Jeddah, KSA - a diversified group with key focus on real estate development, construction (RCC), hospitality (Crystal Resorts - Anantara), logistics (TNT) and media (Times Newspapers - UAE, Ar-Riyadi, KSA) with thirty-five companies in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, UK and in offshore jurisdictions.
Served ad Group Chief Financial Officer with overall responsibility for the strategic planning, acquisitions, investments, corporate development and leadership of the entire corporate finance and financial reporting of SAB Group, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - a diversified group with key focus on Real Estate Development, Construction, Hospitality, Logistics and Media.
Key Achievements
- Transformed business and operationally restructured one of the largest land owners in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (Landbank>30 million m2) in KSA with several landmark developments.
- Established corporate governance at 30+ companies including corporate structure, authority delegation, budgeting, cost management on projects, processes, policies and procedures, safeguarded assets, built a stronger control environment, managed risks, acquired multiple businesses and brought transparency for stakeholders through establishment of Dashboards and reporting mechanism.
- Managed all financial aspects (bonds, advances, payments, cash flows, payrolls, contracts etc.) during construction and fit-out of over USD 925 million hospitality projects in Makkah for seven four and five-star hotels such as Hilton Double tree, Millennium, Westin, Sheraton, etc.
- Raised project finance facilities of over USD 300 million and managed all banking relationships.
- Managed payroll of 3, 500 staff and ensured compliance with WPS and labor laws of KSA.
- Successfully managed tax and legal matters on various large appeals on tax matters and business matters.
- Implemented ERP and document control (Aconex).
Capital Market Authority (CMA), KSA regulated Corporate Finance Advisory firm with focus on corporate advisory, valuations, feasibility studies, fund raising, private placements, investment management, strategy, business plans and financial modeling for key clients in the RE development, RE Funds and family businesses. The role revolved around corporate development and advisory function. It mainly requires:
- Research on business, evaluation of current and optimal business strategy, financial modeling, financial projections and development of business plans
- Analysis of investment teasers, review & appraisal of investment opportunities for taking to private placements
- Preparing and review of range of corporate finance service deliverables like placement memorandums, investment teasers, investors’ & board of directors’ presentations
- Meeting prospective clients and developing proposals to suit their requirements
- Development of new service lines such as deal sourcing, idea generation and private placements
Key Achievements
- Advised on ‘Development Strategy’ on a portfolio level to a Real Estate Fund developing 2, 000 residential units in KSA. An extensive financial model was developed with over 2, 500 variables with capabilities to analyze and rank various real estate development, sale / pre-sales, lease, equity, debt and fund structuring options for optimizing ROI
- Served as Director of Investate Group’s real estate investment companies with real estate holdings in the UK and UAE
o Secured ownership of land in lieu of a distressed investment for partial recovery of shareholders’ investment post UAE real estate crisis
o Successfully managed investor relationship as investment managers
- Conducted feasibility, market study, financial projections and business plan for Project Atlantis - a USD 215 million five-star hotel development project resulting in client reassessing its assumptions through value engineering
- Developed extensive financial projections, feasibility study and business plan for a client building USD 170 million Educational facilities with 7, 500 students to validate the outcomes of market study for fee pricing and for evaluating options to boost ROI
- Manage and supervise execution of engagements for a portfolio of clients within strict deadlines
- Engagements include statutory/external audits of financial statements prepared under International Financial Reporting Standards (IAS/IFRS) and Saudi GAAP
- Quarterly reviews of financial statements, reviews of group reporting packs and agreed upon procedures
- Managing multiple audits, staffs & scheduling, budgets, cost and profitability
- Exceptional quality deliverables produced and issued by the firm after multiple reviews from directors, partners, technical partners & risk management partners
SELECTED ENGAGEMENTS IN FINANCIAL AUDITS
- Petrochemicals: Saudi Basic Chemicals Company (SABIC) (Audit In-Charge: 2003 & 2004) - SABIC ranks within top 5 petrochemical companies in the world as per Fortune 500 list. Net profit in 2004 was USD 3.78 billion (2003: USD 1.78 billion), Methanol Chemicals Company (Chemicals) - 2010, Gulf Packaging - 2010, Trio Mada Plastics - 2010, Mada Non Wovens - 2010, Arabian Amines -2010
- Construction and Contracting: Tamkeen Real Estate Company, Mohammed M. Al Rashid Contracting, Al Hukail Contracting
- Power, EPC & Telecommunication: ABB Contracting, GE Entities, NEC Saudi Arabia, Saudi Ericsson, British Telecom, Etihad Atheeb Telecom, Saudi Networkers Services, Mitsui & Company
- Manufacturing: Lazurde Gold, Henkel Saudi Arabia -2009 & 10, GE Healthcare Saudi Arabia -2009
- Asset Management: The Saudi British Bank Funds - 2005 & 2006 - Assets Under Management of USD 6.8 billion (2006: USD 2.4 billion)
- Banking: The Saudi British Bank - 2005 and 2006: Net profits of USD 667 million (2006: USD 810 million)
- Travel & Services: Fursan Travel & Tourism Ltd 2009 & 2010, KLM Aerocarto 2010
Managerial involvement in day to day operations and client risk limitation in a self promoted equity brokerage firm as a franchisee of Kotak Commodity Services Limited (KCSL) and Kotak Securities Limited (KSL). KSL was awarded top ratings for its equity brokerage and portfolio management services in India for 2006 and 2007, by Asiamoney and Euromoney.
The services to clients include brokerage services for online and offline trading and investments in listed equity shares and derivatives (Index Futures and Options and Equity Futures and Options), commodity futures, depository services (custody), distribution of mutual funds and dissemination of private client research. The business is located in Central India and operating successfully and is owned by my brother who is the sole proprietor of the business.
KEY SKILLS
1) Client Risk Management: Monitoring client exposures in equity and commodity futures, requesting margins and closing positions to limit risk on open positions based on the price and market movements.
2) Trading / Dealing: Supervision of dealers, taking clients’ orders for purchase and sale of equities, equity futures or commodity futures and entering them on the Dealing software, managing orders and records of trades.
3) Investment Research and Advisory: Investment research on fundamental and technical factors is carried out based on global and local market sentiments, investment advisors’ consensus, brokers’ research and news on television, web and print media. Own opinion is formed to navigate the market trends and is disseminated to selected clients.
4) Fundamental and Technical Analysis: Application of fundamental and technical analysis for trading decisions based on ‘RealTime’ technical analysis softwares like Metastock and a fairly good understanding of market behavior and trading psychology based on own experience and books by world renowned authors and market gurus.
Worked for Ernst & Young (EY), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in ‘Assurance and Advisory Business Services (AABS)’ i.e. the service line for audit services and attained the position of ‘Supervising Auditor’ (Assistant Manager) after three successive promotions in annual appraisals. Afterwards, relocated to India in Apr 07 to start a brokerage firm.
JOB DESCRIPTION
The services provided were assurance (statutory/external audit), quarterly reviews of financial statements, reviews of group reporting packs, reviews of financial information for statutory certifications, agreed upon procedures and consulting on accounting matters under Saudi/International Accounting (IFRS)/Auditing Standards and/or applicable laws and regulations.
EY is a global leader and one of the ‘Big four’ consulting firms in the world. Based in US and with offices in more than 100 countries, it employs 135, 000 professionals worldwide. Its global revenues for 2007 were USD 25 billion.
As Supervising Auditor, the job carried numerous responsibilities on multiple engagements and within strict deadlines and included finalising engagement schedules with the clients, planning, organising, staffing, execution, supervision, review and detailed documentation based on the firm’s Global Audit Methodology (GAM), organising and attending meetings with clients’ executives and firms’ partners, managers and staff, ensuring compliance with the Saudi/International Accounting /Auditing Standards (IFRS) and/or applicable laws and regulations, budgeting and monitoring costs and profitability on assignments, coordinating billings and collections, attending and imparting training and ensuring quality in deliverables and services.
Other professional experience include investigation audits, special audits, tax audits, statutory and internal audits, of listed and other companies, concurrent audits of branches of various Indian banks, statutory audits of branches of insurance companies, stock verification and various certification engagements for Chartered Accountant firms in Mumbai, India and includes the period of compulsory training for Chartered Accountancy.
Chartered Accountant
Bachelor of Commerce