Finance Lead and Acting Finance Manager
Strata Manufacturing PJSC
مجموع سنوات الخبرة :12 years, 5 أشهر
Strata is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mubadala Group, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds with assets of over $240B. Strata produces aircraft composite parts for major OEMs, including Boeing & Airbus. The company also holds equity investments in UAE.
Areas of responsibility:
- Reporting to the VP finance and supervising a finance team of 15 including treasury controller, cost controller & senior financial analysts.
- Responsible for managing all finance functions including AP, AR, treasury, sales, VAT, inventory, costing, investments, and fixed assets.
- Reporting standalone and consolidated financial results to company leadership and shareholders on the 4th WD of each month.
- Preparing budgets, tracking budget targets, and evaluating risks and mitigations.
- Preparing ad-hoc reports, IFRS assessments and management position papers on complex accounting matters.
- Drafting presentations for quarterly board meeting and sub-committee meetings.
- Tracking and closing actions from shareholders, board and internal audit findings or recommendations.
- Developing and implementing policies & procedures while ensuring regulatory and DOA compliance.
- Ensuring successful completion of external audit including ICOFR and other audit requirements such as ICV, ETIP or OEM audits.
- Spearheading IT system implementations and improvements while ensuring the health of database, archives, and systems such as SAP.
- Managing cash flow for operations and tracking cashflows relating to investment projects including Joint Venture.
- Approving day to day transaction workflows including invoices, journals, payments, advances, employee benefits, travel requests etc.
Key Achievements:
- Managed the efficient delivery of finance functions with a partially remote team throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Enhanced budget tracking and risk mitigation processes, achieving fiscal bottom-line budget targets for three consecutive years.
- Recovered VAT refunds outstanding for 2 to 5 years in UAE and Europe amounting to USD 10M+.
- Initiated receivables factoring and supply chain finance of USD 50M+ with FAB bank UAE, Citi Bank USA and Banca Sistema in Italy.
- Successfully completed external audits within two months of financial year-end.
- Implemented the COSO framework of internal controls on all business processes and completed the ICOFR audits.
- Restructured and redrafted finance procedures and SODs, reducing employee overtime to zero.
- Maintained zero staff turnover for three consecutive years despite the challenges during Covid-19 pandemic.
- Reduced finance department cost by 15% by recharging cost as shared services to related parties.
- Oversaw the implementation of costing project in SAP to achieve accurate reporting of product and segment cost.
Headquartered in Dubai, Panafrican Equipment Group is the largest authorized provider in the African continent for Komatsu and Deere-Wirtgen equipment, the number two and three largest construction equipment OEMs worldwide only behind Caterpillar.
Areas of responsibility include:
- Reporting to the group financial controller and overseeing the accounting staff for five subsidiaries in East African Region.
- Travelling to East Africa every quarter to support operations, projects, budgets, and audit.
- Preparing standalone and consolidated statutory financial statements in multiple reporting currencies.
- Reporting monthly management accounts with budget comparatives to CEO.
- Preparing and consolidating annual budgets for the region and regional budget pack for the board.
- Supporting the treasury and operations team in debt control and collections.
- Ensuring compliance of VAT, WHT, Income tax, Payroll taxes, levies, duties, and transfer pricing laws.
- Reviewing monthly payroll and taxable benefits, performing actuarial valuation of EOSB of unionized employees.
- Controlling inventory and overseeing stock counts.
- Analyzing landed cost of inventory and updating product pricing.
- Evaluating and developing mitigation plan for the forex exchange risk.
Key Achievements:
- Closed tax audits while defending the company in disputes with local authorities, reducing tax penalties to zero.
- Successfully completed external-audits and budgets for multiple entities simultaneously while traveling to one country after the other.
- Integrated the newly acquired AGCO business and its branches into the finance shared services.
- Developed accounting and reporting structure for new business verticals including Deere-Wirtgen and AGCO.
- Implemented ERP plant hire module for the startup equipment rental business.
- Spearheaded inventory counts and initiated sale-return of dead stock to OEMs.
- Managed billing, contract compliance & transfer pricing related to the group’s largest revenue streams such as Yapi-Merkezi railway, Buzwagi Gold Mining and Kenya Fluorspar Mining.
Union Grand Energy Group in the oil and energy sector and is involved in exploration, production, and transportation of Crude and Petrochemical products mainly through its investments and Joint-Ventures in partnership with Socar, the state oil company of Azerbaijan.
Areas of responsibility included:
- Responsible for accounts finalization and financial reporting of designated subsidiaries and Joint Ventures including Socar Heavy Crane FZE, Socar Caspian Marine Shipping, Marine Trading FZE, Rafi Oil FZE, Socar Surakhani/Balakhani Oil Operating Companies, Gulf Drilling Supply FZE and other businesses listed in Singapore, UAE, and Baku.
- Performing entity level consolidation of branch accounts and group level consolidation.
- Completed annual audit requirements, reviewing, and commenting on the draft financial statements issued by the auditors.
- Performing accounting re-valuation of investments held for sale including fixed deposits, index funds etc.
- Training accounting staff on SAGE ERP system and accounting procedures.
Key Achievements:
- Ensured timely submission of audited financials to free zone authorities, avoiding penalties on late submissions.
- Successfully performed data migration to the new SAGE ERP accounting system.
- Completed all accounting backlogs by running mass data uploads to the ERP database, reaching real time accounting for all subsidiaries.
- Reduced average overdue debts by 90% through real-time monitoring and escalation.
- Established detailed profitability reporting by individual shipment and unit of product, empowering decision makers.
- Lead the implementation of documents management system, archiving and digitalizing years of finance documents.
KPMG is a global professional services company and one of the Big Four financial services organizations in the world.
Areas of responsibility included:
- Ascertainment of engagement objectives and determining audit strategy.
- Carrying out an engagement from planning to execution stage including System documentation, Fraud consideration & Risk assessment.
- Ensuring that the stand alone and consolidated financial statements prepared by the client are in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and all applicable local laws and regulations.
- Extensive application of the International Standards of Auditing (ISAs) on assurance/audit engagements.
- Liaison at various levels of client management to maintain and manage cooperative relationships.
- Evaluating internal control systems, identifying control weaknesses, and making appropriate recommendations to the management.
- Consider and evaluate the results of overall analytical procedures.
- Making recommendations to the client in form of management letter to add value to the engagement.
Member of ACCA (Association of chartered certified accountants)