Asif Sindhu

Byco Group is a joint venture between Abraaj Capital UAE (the largest private equity firm in the middle-east) and Byco Busient Inc. of Jersey. The Company owns and operates Pakistan’s largest petroleum refining complex in addition to Oil infrastructure, Single Point Mooring, a petroleum marketing business and an upcoming trading house and petrochemicals plant. Reporting to the Group CEO and Board, I am responsible for delivery of business objectives and enhancement of shareholder value in addition to supervising all financial activities through the individual company CFO’s.

OGDCL is the largest company in Pakistan with a market capitalization of US$ 11 billion and a profit after tax of around $ 1 billion. The Company is listed locally as well as on the London Stock Exchange. The Company owns and operates around 50 producing oil and gas fields, which include around 20 joint ventures with companies such as BP, OMV, ENI, Shell, MOL, BHP, Premier Oil and others. As CFO, supervised a team of 200 finance professionals and later as CEO managed a 12, 000 countrywide work force.

Responsible for all finance, accounting, governance, control and treasury activities of the Company and the Shell Group in Pakistan. (Annual Turnover $ 2 billion, 500+ staff, Profit before tax $ 80m)

The Company is a joint venture between Shell, Caltex, Pak Arab Refinery and Pakistan State Oil Company. The CFO is a secondee of Shell. The $480 million company has been formed to build, own and operate the new 817 Km White Oil Pipeline, terminal stations and related infrastructure in the country. The CFO is responsible for all finance and accounting activities of the Company and reports directly to the CEO.
Key Achievements:
§ Set up a finance function in the Company from scratch. Hired resources, assigned responsibilities and managed administrative, system and information requirements.
§ Put in place a robust financial reporting and management information system for the JV and for Shell purposes.
§ Formulated and implemented a Corporate Governance Guide and related internal controls§ Implemented a Treasury Policy and Manual of Authorities
§ Established a risk control framework. Implementation will be post-operation§ Re-negotiated and re-structured the local currency financing facility of PKR 12.5 billion (US$ 240 million) with the banks syndicate and thus achieving savings of over US$ 5 million p.a. in financial charges.
§ Provided valuable financial advice and acted as catalyst to finalise the JV agreements on Project Management, Operations and Maintenance, Facilities Sharing and Throughput. Thus achieving conditions precedent for project financing.

Responsible for the overall financial planning and MIS activities of the organisation. This includes preparation of business strategies & plans, Group reporting, financial analysis and decision support activities. Reporting to the Finance Director - Middle East and South Asia.

Responsible for the overall financial, management, taxation and regulatory accounting and reporting activities of the Bank in Pakistan. Oversaw a department of 12 staff and reporting administratively to the Country Head and functionally to the regional CFO in Dubai.
Key Achievements:
§ Improved economic profit of the Bank by A$4m by proposing methodology changes to the EVA model.
§ Reduced personnel cost by 20% and increased efficiency of the Finance department through re-engineering the existing processes.
§ Successfully implemented and operated an initiative tracking system in consultation with the Boston Consulting Group to monitor planning and strategy targets for the year 1999-2000.
§ Successfully implemented and migrated to the Group’s new Hyperion reporting system, which brought in enhanced capabilities for management reporting.
§ Developed a new user-friendly Performance and MIS pack for Business support. This resulted in streamlining of key information for senior management.

Responsible for the implementation of the new Peoplesoft financial systems across the middle-east region of the Bank. Actively involved in re-engineering of the finance processes to a standard operating model. This introduced best systems and business practices resulting in improved productivity, superior decision making and business growth
Key Achievements:
§ Facilitated Transition Planning Workshops in Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Pakistan
§ Successfully completed the data mapping and cleansing exercise as a pre-requisite to data conversion.
§ Automated country specific regulatory and MIS reports which eliminated substantial manual labour.

Seconded to the ANZ Bank world headquarters for a period of one year. Involved in the evaluation, design, development and acceptance testing of the new Peoplesoft financial systems for the group from a user perspective.
Key Achievements:
§ Acted as a key participant in the development of a new global chart of accounts for the ANZ Group general ledger.
§ Authored various functional and procedural specification documents which were a basis for functionality enhancement.
§ Identified and raised functionality issues with Peoplesoft’s support desk USA and agreed fixes, resulting in stability of the system.

Responsible for the routine accounting, finance, taxation and external audit activities of the Bank. Reported to the Head of Finance.
Key Achievements:
§ For the first time, received commendable audit rating for the department.
§ Successfully implemented the new Mastermodeller reporting system to capture Bank of England reporting requirements.
§ Oversaw the automation of the entire payroll function.
§ Improved staff morale and efficiency through a rewards and recognition policy.

Supervised the audits of various commercial and industrial entities. These included companies in the fields of Banking, Shipping, Pharmaceuticals, Tobacco and Engineering.
Key Achievements:
§ Introduced new Price Waterhouse Audit techniques for existing and new clients.
§ Analyzed processes and issued comprehensive Internal Control Memorandums to various clients to help them improve their compliance and internal control standards.