Mohamed Mehdi Bennani

Damco is one of the world’s leading third party logistics providers specialising in customised freight forwarding and supply chain solutions. The company has 11, 000+ employees in more than 300 offices around the world and a global presence in about 100 countries. Damco is part of the Maersk Group.

Reporting to Regional Europe CFO, the main responsibilitites are:
• Improve performance management across the Europe Region in close cooperation with commercial, operations, HR and areas
• Drive Regional financial reporting, forecasting and planning
• Manage, drive and report on overall working capital position and lead optimization of regional working capital position and cash flow
• Analyze business and financial performance of countries and operating entities within the Region and provide input to management on key variations, trends and drive improvement opportunities within region.

Financial Controlling
- Holding overall financial control responsibility for units in the UK, Kurdistan-Iraq and Angola
- Consolidating Maersk Oil financial reporting (40 legal entities) in Hyperion and driving more value and improvements on management reports and business reviews to Maersk Oil executive team
- Driving the quarterly rolling forecast process and ensure treatment sign-off against investment proposals
Risk Management and Business Partnering
 Spearheading global enterprise risk management process, providing continuous support and advice in risk identification, treatment, and action plans
 Conducting risk workshops with increased focus on emergent risks in the Oil sector
 Providing finance business partnering to Maersk Oil units, business development and corporate strategy on IFRS related matters, farm-ins and farm-outs and risk management
Key achievements
- Driving continuous improvements in financial reporting processes to ensure alignment with stakeholder requirements
- Achieving improved performance and cost efficiencies by working collaboratively with the operating units
- Implementing a global rolling forecast tool to replace the existing manual processes

Financial Controlling
- Holding full accountability for group financial reports, financial control and the consolidation of over 200 container ports and inland services
- Providing strong leadership and direction to an outsourced control team comprising 5 qualified Accountants, with responsibility for monitoring their productivity, efficiency and work quality
- Preparing accounts for new acquisitions, including IFRS analysis, purchase price allocation and sign-off with external auditors
- Supplying the Business Development team with pertinent information relating to potential divestments and their impact on overall business performance
- Carrying out IFRS compliance inspections, providing advice on improvements to the reporting cycle and data quality, and sharing best practices
Compliance and Risk Management
- Leading the development and maintenance of the APMT control framework at corporate level and executing appropriate monitoring of corporate controls
- Working closely with the terminals to close internal and external audit findings
Key achievements
- Leading a financial transformation initiative to develop a world-class finance organisation, including a Faster Close project which reduced the overall business unit sign off from 12 working days to a sustainable 6 working days in 12 months
- Delivering significant improvements in the quality of non-financial data and KPI information and usage
- Overseeing the design of a global financial, operational and commercial data reporting system

- Preparing annual audited financial statements, and ensuring treatment sign off with external auditors
- Preparing financial and operational reports with commentaries for senior management, ensuring reliability and consistency of data
- Promoting risk management and reporting high risks to corporate including key mitigation action plans
- Spearheading the quarterly rolling forecast and targets setting process and providing monthly management dashboards and senior management reports
- Achieving appointment as Business Partner for key external stakeholders including banks and the Port Authority
Key achievements
- Playing an integral role in Process Excellence projects, certified Green Belt in Lean Six Sigma
- Implementation of rolling quarterly forecast replacing traditional annual budget process

• Conducting audit assignments and providing financial advice to leading multinational companies, demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of industry regulations

Overseeing cash application procedures, credit note procedures and invoicing, as well as reviewing and monitoring internal controls