Head of Finance Business Partners
Panda Retail Company - Saudi Arabia
Total years of experience :22 years, 11 Months
Panda Retail is the largest grocery retailer in Saudi Arabia and part of Savola Group company. Panda operates more than 182 stores across Saudi Arabia with revenues of over SAR 11 billion.
Part of the Management team reporting to CFO. Lead the Finance Business Partner function with a team structure of 3 Managers & 2 Analysts across financial Planning, Analysis, Budgeting / Forecasting & Operation / Business support.
Responsible to present the finance department as single point of contact and support all Business Units in all finance related requirements such as analysis reports, payments and spending classifications and ensure that the operating expenses and the revenues are in line with the approved budget. Partner & assist senior management in the decision-making process to ensure the short term and long-term plans and strategy are met.
● Designed and developed Action plans to reduce Non-Trade Inventory by 19 Mn SAR by defining the liquidation plans, consumption by stores, Return to suppliers & sales to customers.
● Developed the governance & promoted the Internal controls over IT spending (Capex & Opex) to reach 30 Mn SAR less than last year.
● Control Maintenance expenses (Preventive & Corrective): review the contracts & rationalize the spending by store & category to reach 20 Mn SAR less than last year.
● Established staff compounds dashboard to benchmark the cost between Inhouse & Outsource by running a financial simulation to develop the right model to reach 10 Mn SAR less than last year.
● Built Headcount tool to have the right sizing & Structure by store to increase the productivity with better customer service offering.
● Introduced new (Normalized) Profit & Loss reporting for store Managers to keep them focused in areas of their control and help them in meeting the targets.
Establish finance function for Carrefour supermarket, such as financial reporting, analysis, and project management in line with business standards. Country point of contact for E- Commerce Finance & Operational KPI’s .Create detailed country financial reports and submit final updates to General Manager of Finance. Lead highly skilled team of two financial controllers for administering financial procedures. Formulate internal growth business plans in order to gain corporate aims. Conduct feasibility studies regarding any new project / stores and financial analysis for leading and delivering special projects on time and budgetary constraints.
•Designed and developed new store model by defining the store typology, type of customers, locations, products offering, working hours, operation guidelines & procedures, potential sales, running costs & financial returns.
•Gained Market share, penetrated new market as the first modern retailer, opened six stores within four months.
•Gained strategic goals through development of a summarized analytical report containing key metrics, running of the business, and evaluation of the status.
•Led the implementation process for E- Commerce finance and operation KPIs, process & procedures, internal controls, reporting and analysis, budgeting, and forecasting.
•Conducted feasibility studies for new projects / stores, evaluated the performance after the opening with implementing actions (Post Audit), Run Impairment test exercise, and developing 5 year plans.
•Reduced the expenses by 20% by developing a driver based tool to quantify the required expenses &Staff as per the activity/ volume handled.
Regulate financial procedures in supermarket business format, including managing cash flow and OPEX, leading inventory operations, and overseeing stock takes operations. Generate financial and ad hoc management reports as well as forward final feedback to three financial controllers, two CCO controllers (central cashier office), security manager, maintenance manager, and IT manager. Control operating expense and capital expenditure of the company aligned with budget by performing yearly budget and forecasts. Cultivate solid and productive rapport with internal and external auditors and ensure the adherence of company standards and IFRS.
•Managed and completed “Multitasking Project” on time and given budget for administering financial process.
•Led project that aimed at improving the staff productivity and availability as per customer’s traffic and needs.
•Defined the required staff as per the volume handed & frequency (Full Time Equivalent) and provided the tools to store Management to reschedule the staff attendance as per the customer traffic.
•Led Loss control committee to tackle this issue and implemented actions (Loss by Product, Loss by Suppliers, Leakage in internal Controls, and Weakness in processes.
•Promoted the internal control culture within the operation team to follow and track the stock continuously and introduced the Cycle count (Perpetual) for the main categories.
•Increased knowledge of commercial team on finance related topics by organizing regular training sessions for non-finance training module.
•Headed all aspects of business, operational, and financial activities of 30 stores and commercial departments.
•Ensured the adherence of policies & procedures and took loss prevention actions to control shrinkage by designing and implementing Internal Control system.
•Selected Internal Control assessment committee at Majid Al Futtaim retail to increase the efficiency and improve the current assessment process.
•Simplified and improved current Internal Control scorecard points and reduced the control points from 500 control points to 100.
•Improved KPIs by generating tools to challenge operations’ team’s results.
•Introduced a new ordering tool to assist the commercial team to place their orders to avoid excess stock (wastage, or clearance) or shortage (loss in sales, bad image to customers) and secure the items freshness.
Create business unit report and forward final feedback to CFO, and managing one manager, one senior financial analyst and two plant controllers. Established cost control mindset in the BU by coordinating and managing BU budgeting and forecasting process. Rendered financial arguments and ensured financial follow up of investment costs by taking decisions on investment projects. Managed and solved critical issues by coordinating plant controllers within business unit. Analyzed variances, validated the BU’s financial information, and conducted analysis to the BU level and Group/ Division. Provided effective business unit support for managing and solving performance issues and examine BU financial/ operational performance.
•Increased the reliability of financial statements through enforcement of Internal Control Standards.
•Carried out cost consciousness in the Company by steering active control and cost analyzing on commercial activities and general administration expenses.
•Prepared strategy / budget until analysis of results against plan and maintained business support information on the BU’s financial / operational performance as per Group Financial policies.
Served as Internal Control / Audit manager, implemented SOX act in Lafarge, executed internal audit tasks, and led various projects. Controlled all aspects of internal control and audit operations, such as budgeting/forecasting, financial /technical performance management, reporting, variance analysis. Conceptualized internal growth financial plans and analysis of Key Performance Indicators (KPI's). Retained the record of financial position and business competitiveness. Administered wide range of business planning process associated with strategic reviews, budgets, rolling forecasts, and monthly performance reviews.
● Effectively prepared financial performance report of business by collecting information system infrastructure.
● Enhanced capabilities of Control /Audit team through training and motivational programs.
● Served as trainer for finance module and conducted training to all managers in the organization.
● Enabled the attainment of agreed financial and strategic business targets as well as optimized the working capital of the company by using a tool.
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