Business Manager
Barclays
Total years of experience :10 years, 5 Months
▪ Responsible for providing a high quality service experience and customer proposition for small, medium and start-up businesses. Drive acquisitions and build customer relationships within an assigned portfolio.
▪ Stakeholder management within the Business Team and Credit Office
▪ Submitting credit proposals to the Credit Managers for sanctioning and collaborating with the Credit Managers to solution client needs
▪ Taking time to understand the client’s business and then providing the correct product fit to meet their business needs
▪ Taking ownership and resolving any complaints while always keeping my customers best interest at heart
▪ Using my expertise to identify potential areas for growth, before providing guidance and making authoritative recommendations
▪ Doing things Right the First Time, ensuring customer received excellent service levels well within the agreed service level agreements
▪ Strong focus on building community relationships and empowering start-up businesses with the correct tools to succeed
▪ Assisting clients with a wide range of services and using my strong product knowledge and credit skills to identify opportunities for driving growth and improving bottom line revenues
▪ Responsible for providing a high quality credit analysis, structuring and sanctioning for business lending with a personal mandate of R25m (£1, 5m) and Group Credit Committee mandate of R30m (£1, 6m).
▪ Delivering excellence in customer service by working with clients to understand the needs of their business, helping them to add value to their applications and going above and beyond by sharing valuable industry insights to help clients grow their business
▪ To ensure quality assets are placed and retained on the books by correct solutioning of client’s needs
▪ Responsible for driving Regional Monthly Watch-list Meetings where high risk clients are managed in terms of Basle reporting standards, including restructuring of delinquent accounts and initiating the transfer to Business Recovery and or Debt Recovery Services for accounts or groups which cannot be rehabilitated in the normal credit environment
▪ Adherence to Bank’s credit policies, guidelines and procedures in providing credit decisions
▪ Add value to applications to ensure a commercial balance between risk and reward is achieved.
▪ Structuring debt facilities appropriately - monitoring, covenants and conditions. .
▪ Negotiating with Relationship Teams, Senior Stake Holders. I set-up deal forums where transactions are tabled by frontline sales teams and a robust discussion is held to ascertain credit appetite for the transaction and what appropriate risk mitigants need to be embedded to bank the transaction.
▪ Responsible for Mentoring and coaching junior Credit Managers within the team and Relationship teams including 5 Credit Analysts to ensure an appropriate level of credit skills is maintained.
▪ Proactively contribute to embedding agreed change initiatives in support of process and quality improvements eg. I partner with Head Office to make IT changes to the Webica tool used for sanctioning of deals. This contributes to better quality credit papers and faster turnaround credit decisions made.
▪ Credit modelling of transactions on various case scenarios to predict debt performance.
▪ First class credit assessment, structuring and sanctioning skills
▪ Fastest turnaround times provided to Relationship teams in terms of credit decisions made within SLA’s. I am able to provide a credit decision well within the 48 hour Service Level Agreement.
▪ Deal Maker bringing on top quality assets to increase bottom line while mitigating the bank’s risk
▪ Excellent communicator having worked with clients in rural regions of South Africa with varied languages and cultural base. Presents key points of an argument persuasively. Negotiates and convinces other. Changes people’s views and influences their decisions. Comes across with force and credibility
▪ Flexible and adaptable having worked with Absa in both central South Africa predominantly an agricultural base and in the coastal regions of Kwazulu-Natal which has the primary ports in South Africa and is deeply entrenched in wholesale of goods, manufacturing, agriculture and transport.
▪ Understanding individual transaction economics to maximize revenue and meet hurdle rates, eg I have locked in the transactional banking of a client as a condition of grant to make a deal bankable in terms of revenue maximization while mitigating the risk to the bank
▪ Service excellence - customers and other stakeholder. Conduct regular client visits to understand the client’s business and partner with the client in creating a solution that will help client foster growth as well as maximize revenues to the bank creating a win-win for both parties.
▪ Excellent knowledge of Business Banking products to guide decision making during credit assessments
▪ Astute risk partner that frontline business comes to for assistance in bringing quality assets on to the books
▪ Makes systematic and rational judgements based on consideration of all the facts and alternatives available
▪ Industry knowledge includes Manufacturing, Agriculture, Pharmaceutical, Reta
▪ Prepare credit applications through analysis and interpretation of financial statements, economic, political and industry commodity data.
▪ Manage credit risks associated with the portfolio of high risk clients in the Corporate, Specialised, Acquisition & Leveraged, Working Capital Solutions and Commercial Property Finance Key Account finance environment in South Africa. Monthly Watch-list meetings held with the Credit Managers to discuss measures to be taken for client that are experiencing cash flow constraints and showing signs of defaulting on their commitments. Appropriate decisions are then taken to forward these clients to Business Support and Recovery and or Debt recovery if an exit strategy is adopted.
▪ Carry out quality credit assessments and present bankable solutions pertaining to clients (existing and new) and transactions in portfolio including cash flow and sensitivity analysis
▪ Achieved excellent approval rate from Credit Managers/Credit Committee of above 90%
▪ Achieved fast turnaround times in compiling a credit paper. I submitted credit papers to the Credit Manager/Credit Committee well within the SLA of 48 hours from the time the information pack was provided to me by the frontline Relationship Manager
▪ Back up of Marketing Assistant, which include duties such as preparation of facility letters, preparing minutes and sending urgent credit enquiries
▪ Meet with clients to discuss financial requirements and provide professional advice relating to the range of available banking products and services, documented through site visit/call reports.
▪ Follow-up on credit facility recovery, monitor and regularize issues related to irregularity or defaults as soon as possible. (ABSA Risk Management System (ARMS))
▪ Assisting Credit Administration and Regional Credit Manager in compilation of data and submission of reports complying with requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), including Early Warning Watch-list and impairment calculations.
▪ Monitor financial covenants agreed with clients not breached.
▪ Top quality Credit papers presented to Credit Manager and Credit Committee
▪ Highly accurate and complete per-fact requirements documented in line with banks credit policy.
▪ Strong leadership skills within the Trio team displayed ie. Relationship Manager, Credit Analyst and Transactional Banker
▪ Commands respect of peers through providing quick service, correct client solutioning without undermining the Bank’s risk position
▪ Ability to decline application at source when not comfortable with transaction put forth by Relationship Manager
Achieved an overall Barclay score of 83% and awarded the GRCB International Performance prize.
Distinctions Obtained: Business Management II (General Business Management), Business Management III (Financial Management and Global Business Environments)