Strategy & Business Development Manager
Zamil Architectural Holding Company
Total years of experience :21 years, 6 Months
Highlights
• Identified and leveraged synergies of holding companies to improve process efficiency, employee productivity and cost reduction.
• Brought in additional revenues by introducing new value added products in the market by negotiating and signing sponsorship agreements and forming agency relationships with overseas partners.
Key Responsibilities
• Assist top decision makers within the company in developing the Group’s long-term growth strategy by providing market inputs and business forecasts.
• Monitor deployment of strategies and their effectiveness in achieving the objectives set in the company’s annual business plan; determine if business progress is in alignment with defined strategic direction and notify top management of any variance.
• Support the operating company in managing projects by deploying effective plans and project monitoring mechanism, and integrate the project management process with the overall business plan.
• Ensure that strategies and plans are fluid enough to meet changing business priorities and robust to withstand sudden market challenges.
• Assess feasibility of and implement backward and forward integration projects for all group companies.
• Enter into strategic alliances and manufacturing joint ventures with regional/international organizations, to add new products to the company’s product portfolio and cater to a larger market.
• Manage admin tasks and secretarial functions (Board meetings, documentation) for the Executive Committee and board.
Highlights
• Lead the establishment of new Joint Ventures in automatic doors with Assa Abloy Entrance Systems (Sweden), as well as in hazardous waste management with Séché Environment (France).
Key Responsibilities
• Monitored and controlled projects, allocated and controlled budgets, ensured adherence to project schedules.
• Reported to the General Manager - Projects on progress of various projects being managed, discuss definite ideas and their commercial and technical feasibility, and accelerate the activities that were lagging.
• Managed quality of deliverables across all phases of the project, achieved successful close-out by employing project best practices.
• Contribute to achieving strategic objectives by completing and handing over critical and high value projects on time and within budget.
• Monitored the business cycle, tracked the business environment and informed management of any changes that affect the business; helped prepare contingency plans.
• Developed investment strategy for projects and determining financial feasibility of projects, prepared financial models to gauge ROI and facilitate decision making.
• Coordinated with banks and financial institutions for sourcing of funds, submitted project feasibility reports and other necessary documents to banks as required.
• Analyzed external investment opportunities and recommend investments with satisfactory ROI; evaluated and formed strategic alliances to boost business.
• Gathered, collated and evaluated market data on competitors’ products (pricing, technology, market perception, sales) and recommended countermeasures.
• Carried out market surveys to assess market requirements and aligned the company’s products accordingly; gathered information on the company’s primary market segments.
• Foresaw problems / bottlenecks in projects and collaborated with the GM in developing solutions, evaluated project risks and developed risk mitigation framework.
Highlights
• Implemented a Balance Scorecard and a performance reporting system that enabled effective strategic decision making.
Key Responsibilities
Strategy Reporting Systems
• Established effective strategy reporting systems and procedure that ensured integrity of data sources and data, accurate data flow to enable reliable decagon support, secure data handling and reporting.
• Ensured performance metrics in the Balance Score Card (BSC) were in line with SMART objectives, implemented a review and approval process for updating the BSC.
• Implemented a robust data and information security and confidentially policy and procedures to protect business sensitive data, prevent involuntary disclosures and data compromise.
• Maintained the BSC library of performance measures that encompassed metrics related to customers, financial performance, operations perspective, and internal business perspective.
• Approved implementation of BSC software after ensuring it was compatible with the current technology available with the company, met user requirements, and was quickly comprehensible for the teams.
• Designated company representative to hold technical discussions and commercial negations with the BSC vendor, clarify company’s business requirements and expected outcomes from using the BSC software.
Strategy Performance Reporting
• Ensured that the performance reporting system comprehensively captured all critical aspects of business performance, was objective with emphasis on factual information, enabled quick decisions and actions, and was easily understood by stakeholders.
• Oversaw implementation of the reporting system, kept management updated of progress, monitored effectiveness of the system through reviews, and carried out updates in order to achieve stable scorecards.
• Evaluated and authorized Balanced Scorecard and Portfolio Management reports that included performance analysis, strategic initiatives and recommendations.
Strategy Performance Review
• Organized performance reviews and presentations for the Boards and Committees by finalizing review dates and communicating these to participants.
• Defined agenda in collaboration with the Chairman, facilitated performance review dialogue; assisted in deciding action plans, assigning accountability and timeframes and carried out subsequent follow-ups to determine status.
• Educated the Board and Committee members in comprehending the reports, clarified their queries and helped them interpret the performance reports accurately.
Strategic Business Intelligence Reporting
• Defined business areas for research, set timeframes for business intelligence gathering, monitored information gathering assignments, analyzed data for drawing strategic inferences.
• Evaluated PESTLE and the KEY PESTLE FACTOR reports to determine factors that had implications for the business and analyze their impact.
• Reviewed and analyzed industry and sector specific business intelligence reports, drew conclusions and made recommendations to the management.
Operational Support
• Studied best business practices for the sector, determined feasibility of introducing these within the group, and established specific best practices that met company requirements.
• Evaluated local consultants best suited to provide advisory services, reviewed their earlier work and success stories, and made recommendations for finalizing consultants.
• Encouraged knowledge sharing and Learning & Developments by establishing professional forums that gave a platform to professionals from different areas to share their experience and expertise.
Highlights
• Co- developed, implemented and activated Group’s governance bodies in the new corporate structure.
Key Responsibilities
Board Meetings Arrangement & Coordination
• Organized Sector Board meetings, sent meeting schedules well in advance to participants, defined and developed meeting agenda (based on prioritizing critical issues, previous meeting references and imminent milestones).
• Ensured all necessary documents, data and material needed for the successful conduct of the meeting was submitted beforehand, reviewed material and notified Chairman regarding any quality issues.
• Recorded and maintained minutes of meeting, circulated these to all attendees for reference and action.
• Established ground rules of the meeting jointly with the Chairman, ensured effective communication and productive dialogue during the meeting.
• Followed-up with Sector Board members regarding actions plans decided during the meeting, and informed Chairman of the progress made in various assignments.
Supporting High Value Priority Assignments
• Analyzed business sector operations and identified highest value priorities, supported the management on focusing on these to facilitate business growth.
• Ensured compliance with established standards and procedures while executing priorities and implementation of decisions as directed by the management.
• Maintained seamless coordination and flow of communication between the Sector Board and priority owners, and ensured defined business priorities met completion schedules.
Group Companies’ Coordination
• Maintained consistent and accurate communication between Group corporate functions and Sector Board, conveyed Board’s decisions across Group functions, and updated operational processes accordingly.
• Aided communication between multiple organizational entities that included Sector Board, Executive Committee and Operating Companies.
• Supported Operating Companies in expediting their strategic projects by escalating these to the Sector Board, and obtaining necessary approvals from the Board.
Highlights
• Developed and established a performance management system at group level and for strategic priorities that reliably monitored performance, quickly identified performance lags and helped initiate course correction measures.
Key Responsibilities
• Assisted Operating Companies in integrating performance management processes and policies into their daily operations that helped identify major issues and facilitated quick action.
• Evaluated Group business performance consistently to verify whether it was on course to meet business objectives, determined gaps between actual and expected performance, analyzed root cause and recommended suitable actions to bridge the gap.
• Monitored operations and processes to determine scope of improvements, upgraded processes to make them more efficient and productive.
• Implemented best business practices that were in convergence with business needs of the Group, played the role of change agent to deliver results and work towards business excellence.
• Planned and conducted learning and development sessions, arranged seminars and professional trainings to drive business excellence.
• Organized knowledge sharing sessions and deployed effective knowledge management systems for knowledge capture and dissemination, and created a knowledge repository.
• Supported the top management in developing strategic goals of the Group and communicated these across the organizational hierarchy.
• Participated in corporate planning, defined interdependencies between performance management, strategic priorities and major business processes to facilitate a smooth operational flow and managed interlinked tasks.
Highlights
• Instituted business bests practices (BR, BSC, BEM) across Group companies that led to significant improvements in operational results.
• Led change management initiatives, overcame resistance through positive engagements with stakeholders and implemented change, determined gaps in results and carried out modifications. Key benefits accrued included resource optimization and enabled faster responses to business challenges.
• Established and maintained excellent business relations with globally renowned management consultants that included TSMG, Oxford Management, McKinsey, Marakon, Deloitte, Gateways.
Key Responsibilities
• Provided critical inputs to the Holding Board in devising and deploying corporate strategies after analyzing key business drivers and external factors, and helped set strategic direction for the group.
• Collaborated with the Sector Boards in for designing and implementing sector level strategies and business plans, monitored effectiveness of strategies reengineered strategies where needed.
• Analyzed macroeconomic factors (domestic, regional, global), business trends and major events that could have a potential impact on the Group’s business portfolio, compiled half-yearly report and presented it to the management to enable decision-making.
• Conducted yearly reviews of the entire business portfolio, determined growth areas of growth and those that were stagnant, supported individual business units in developing and implementing growth plans.
• Studied the investment environment, identified opportunities that would yield satisfactory ROI and provided advice to Group companies, corporate finance, and investment and business development divisions.
• Evaluated the contribution of Group’s projects in advancing the Group’s transition towards open market economies.
• Analyzed Group’s operations, identified its core competencies and helped in consolidating these as per the Group’s long-term strategies and goals.
• Organized training and development programs for senior executives by coordinating with external consultants; ensured that executives’ skills were enhanced to meet the challenges of a changing business environment.
Highlights
• Credited with successfully executing projects across different business verticals such as petrochemicals, chemicals, steel, aluminium, food, plastics, fiber-glass, minerals, detergents, IT and training.
• Played an essential part in organizational restructuring provided key inputs to the top management that led to improvements in Corporate Governance and Portfolio Management.
Key Responsibilities
• Planned and managed numerous projects end-to-end - client interactions, requirements gathering, resource and budget allocation, project exaction and monitoring, and final handover.
• Maintained an efficient supply chain for raw material and products across all projects ensuring projects were not held up due to material shortage; coordinated with material suppliers and logistics providers.
• Deployed financial models to evaluate project returns in terms of IRR (Internal Rate of Return), NPV (Net Present Value) and submitted reports to the management.
• Prepared project documentation (commercial, legal), ensured all necessary terms and conditions were appropriately included and that the company’s interests were protected.
• Assessed funding requirements for projects, determined share of the funds to be procured from internal and external sources, prepared loan applications and supporting documents and submitted these to financial institutions (Saudi Investment Development Funds), and commercial banks.
• Prepared ‘Executive Summary’ of projects that included that included introduction, brief description, goals of the project and approach, and submitted the report to the senior management.
• Conferred with the senior management on financial facets such as cost estimates, commercial contracts, funding, tendering etc.
• Made daily work plans and assigned tasks to Project Coordinators, supervised the Project Coordinators and held end of the day reviews to verify all assignments were completed.
• Held periodic performance reviews of Project Coordinators and the project team, gave performance improvement suggestions and resolved issues raised by team members.
Previous Assignments
• 4 Years 7 Months, Projects Coordinator, A. H. Al-Zamil Group of Companies, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TRAINING • Sep 2014: Middle Managers' Leadership Course – 3 Modules (In-house Training), Al Khobar • Mar 2008: Leading with Emotional Intelligence (In-house Training), Oxford Management / GLOMACS, Al Khobar • Jun 2009: Re-Inventing Your Business Strategy (In-house Training), Al Khobar • Apr 2009: Basic Presentation Skills (In-house Training), Al Khobar • Feb 2009: Making Strategy Happen, IRR’s Training Course in Dubai • Jul 2008: Anderson’s ‘Leading & Managing through Strategic Planning, Development & Implementation’, Cairo • Mar 2008: Leaders’ two-days Master Classes on The Art of Strategy Execution’ Dr. R. Kaplan and Dr. D. Norton, Balanced Scorecard Forum, Dubai • Mar 2008: Strategic Planning & Goal Setting (In-house Training Course), Oxford Management / GLOMACS, Al Khobar • Dec 2007: Managing & Motivating towards Excellence, Oxford Management / GLOMACS, Dubai • Nov 2007: Introduction to Six Sigma Program, Future Technologies, Al Khobar • Jan 2007: Strategic Marketing, IRR’s In-house Training Course, Al Khobar CERTIFICATIONS • Apr 2007: Certified Planner, Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM), Oxford Management