Fp&a Manager
Al Futtaim Group
Total years of experience :10 years, 5 Months
• Led the FP&A function for all Overseas Financial Services and Rental/Leasing entities for all forecasting
and budgeting activities
• Submitted annual budgets and monthly forecasts in a timely manner on SAP, IFRP and BPC
• Prepared 3 year and 5 year business plans, ensuring fund raising is planned effectively
• Business partnered with sales teams to forecast sales and review sales performance monthly
• Prepared KPI dashboards on Power BI, analysing revenue streams across the business
• Monthly dashboards created on Power BI, highlighting key financial KPIs for the business and industry
• Prepared monthly Board decks, with commentary on recommended courses of action for leadership
Business partnered with all departments to monitor departmental spending versus budget and ensure hiring plans are being kept within budget. Also lead discussions with departments on commencing budget plans for 2024. This enabled much better alignment of actual performance of the business to budget.
Worked with the finance team, other departments and CFO to re-build from the ground up, the quarterly forecast model by obtaining and analysing up-to-date information on spending of one-off costs and changes to spending. Much more accurate quarterly forecasts were produced as a result.
Re-built a model for annual stress testing and collaborated with the CFO and Holding entity to include prevalent and potential drivers into account such as inflation, risk of an economic downturn, disruption to operating entities etc. This all resulted in a robust stress testing scenario model that could easily be configured to various severity scenarios.
Led the development and training of the use of Power BI across the finance team to produce high quality financial analysis reports and dashboards for the business and leadership team. Developed KPIs and valuable analysis of performance of the entity such as staff retention, productivity of each function, feedback from operating entities, profitability by function and versus budget, among many other forms of measures. Excellent feedback from CFO and leadership on the very high value added to the business by enabling better and quicker business critical decisions and resulting in the increase in performance and profitability.
Built a model through automation of a complex excel model with the use of advanced formulae to enable tracking of function headcount and cost versus budget, which is the biggest cost component and cost driver of this entity. This enabled much improved budgeting, business planning and improved variance analysis to actuals on a monthly basis.
Produced a monthly management pack, including by department, that showed the monthly and year to date business performance versus budget. Led the transition of reporting from Powerpoint to Power BI to enable quicker and more timely monthly reporting which enabled quicker decision making by leadership.
Achievements:
• Commenced alignment and standardization of entity budgets across the group for the next 3 years. This enabled more consistent budget templates and efficiencies across the group.
• The company needed to understand why the retention of banking customers was declining over a certain period, resulting in a decline in fee income. Liaised with the IT team to obtain accurate and reliable data and then built a financial analysis model with meaningful analysis and graphs. As a result it was identified why the decline was caused.
• Acted as finance business partner by liaising with the wider finance team and preparing board reports for senior management.
• Supporting the wider finance team with regular monthly, quarterly and annual financial reporting.
• Providing detailed analysis and commentary on the results and forecasts and presenting this to senior management.
Skills/Responsibilities
• Preparation and review of the Group monthly and quarterly management accounts pack
• Preparation and review of the quarterly financial reports submitted to the FCA
• Managing a team of three finance assistants, ensuring all team deadlines are met in a
timely and accurate manner
• Act as the lead for FP&A analysis in order to effectively forecast and budget the company’s
activities as it grows at a substantial rate. Develop Forecasting and Budgeting models in
order to effectively and accurately forecast and budget, and provide relevant variance
commentary
• Proactively working with key stakeholders, other department heads and non-finance teams
to build an accurate budgeting process
• Provided critical cashflow forecasting and analysis as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic
and it’s impact on the business. Worked with key stakeholders to forecast revenue and
cost outflows to ensure the business has sufficient liquidity in a challenging economic peri-
od
• Develop and improve bonus remuneration models for the sales team, and remuneration
models for the sales team leaders to drive improvement of performance across the busi-
ness and improve loan origination
• Acting as the lead for the delivery of the year end financial accounts for the Group under
IFRS
• Providing IFRS technical accounting guidance to the rest of the finance team
• Improving the financial controls in place in the organisation, working closely with the sys-
tems accounts and other departments
• Managed the year end audit process and resolved queries to meet submission deadlines
• Liaise with other teams across the business to build effective cross-departmental relation-
ships in order to improve understanding of processes
Skills/Responsibilities
• Prepare the weekly and monthly management accounts under mark to market accounting,
with meaningful commentary and analysis to meet the group timetable and management
needs
• Responsible for the Gasoline trading book within the UK, along with other smaller trading
books, and being the trusted expert for each book
• Reviewing and uploading budgets/forecasts monthly, analysing variances to actuals and
having input into improving the accuracy of forecasts
• Working closely with the middle office Risk team in order to understand how the business
reports its results internally and how this translates to the back office accounting
• Building strong relationships within my own team and other departments throughout the
business in order to contribute to the overall reported results
• Leading the SOX reporting requirements within my own team to ensure that SOX control
and reporting standards are met to tight deadlines, and managing auditors queries and
control walkthroughs
• Assisting in the production and review of the year end accounts for group entities and the
consolidated accounts
• Coaching, developing and managing junior members of my own team, managing the ap-
praisals of team members, and providing any support needed for them to contribute to the
overall output of the team
Industry exposure: Property and Construction, Manufacturing, Law, Technology, Insurance,
Wholesale, Hospitality, Housing, Entertainment and Education
Skills/Responsibilities
• Perform financial statement audits in accordance with International Financial Reporting
Standards (IFRS) and Auditing Standards.
• Perform FRS102 conversion work for audits in accordance with UK GAAP.
• Produce financial statements in accordance with IFRS and UK GAAP.
• Perform other assurance engagements including Solicitors Accounts Rules (SAR) en-
gagements.
• Supervise audit engagements with a team of up to 4 people, including mentoring junior
staff members and reviewing work.
• Provide technical advice and guidance to clients, controls recommendations, and recom-
mend accounting treatment and disclosure for financial statements.
Clients
Broker Direct Plc - Turnover £20m
Broker Direct is a listed company which provides insurance brokerage services to the insur-
ance industry.
Key responsibilities:
• Performed audit procedures on the highest risk area, Revenue, involving complex technic-
al knowledge of accounting for contract revenue and commission income
• Performed detailed audit procedures over the consolidation of the group accounts
• Supervised the audit engagement, involving leading the audit team and acting as a main
point of contact with the client and the
Industry exposure: Retail, Manufacturing, Law, Security, Engineering, Transportation and
Logistics
Skills/Responsibilities
• Performed financial statement audits in accordance with International Financial Reporting
Standards (IFRS) and Auditing Standards.
• Performed and supervised assurance engagements including Solicitors Accounts Rules
(SAR) engagements
• Involved in large audit engagements, including FTSE100 companies, with a team of up to
10 people
• Supervised and coached junior staff members, and acted as support for new graduates
Clients
G4S plc - Turnover £6, 848m, DB Schenker Rail International Limited - Turnover £43m,
Eversheds LLP - SAR assurance engagement,
Acted as an Indirect tax adviser, gaining a good understanding of work in a demanding cli-
ent-facing office environment, working on complex VAT projects, completing VAT returns,
communicating with clients and prospective clients and studying towards exams.
Main modules: Financial and Management Accounting, Audit, Issues and case studies in Finance and Accounting, Business Law, Corporate Asset Pricing, Marketing, Economics, Taxation.
Maths - A, French - A, Physics - D