Ramakrishnan Natarajan

Etisalat is the leading telecommunication group (Revenues of $12 billion) in the middle east with international presence in Africa, Asia and listed in the Abu Dhabi stock exchange.

Etisalat Group is the investment holding entity for the operating companies across the globe including Etisalat UAE.

My primary responsibility is to deliver world-class financial statements, duly audited, every quarter. These financial statements as published in the Abu Dhabi stock exchange where Etisalat is listed.

My responsibilities:
- Lead the IFRS consolidation and reporting function
- IFRS center of excellence for Etisalat Group - provide accounting solutions, guidelines to operating companies
- Lead the quarterly, annual statutory reporting and audit sign-off
- Review system design of financial consolidation system (Hyperion) and recommend improvements
- Perform and present impairment reviews for group’s investments
- Lead the acquisition accounting and purchase price allocation for business combinations

Provided innovative solutions
- Helped Etisalat achieve efficiency in last mile of reporting by designing a seamless solution for financial statement preparation and publishing.

Successful acquisition integrations
- Purchase price accounting, audit sign-off for a major subsidiary $2b

Emirates Airline is an international airline with the youngest fleets in the sky and 400+ worldwide awards for excellence.

dnata is the world’s 4th largest air services provider with presence in 5 continents with 5 major businesses viz., Travel, Ground handling, Cargo, Catering and IT.

Together Emirates and dnata constitute The Emirates group with Revenues of over $20 billion with 60, 000+ employees.

MANAGER GROUP FINANCIAL REPORTING
\[February 2007 to September 2013\]

I was responsible for financial accounting for dnata, IFRS Compliance and financial consolidation and reporting for the Emirates group.

My responsibilities relating to FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING:
- Lead end-to-end financial accounting & reporting function for dnata covering 5 major diversified business units
- Present monthly financial performance to CFO providing business insights, highlighting key events and focus areas
- Lead the end-to-end statutory audit process for dnata from planning to sign-off
- Identify and drive areas of opportunities for accounting and process improvement
- Overall responsibility for ensuring sound internal controls on financial accounting viz., transaction review, account reconciliations, controls in financial systems etc.
- Business partnering on strategic initiatives, promotions, process automations, process changes, accounting policy reviews, acquisitions support. Be the central contact point for all accounting and reporting matters.

IFRS COMPLIANCE, FINANCIAL CONSOLIDATION AND REPORTING:
- Lead the IFRS consolidation and reporting function for the Emirates group comprising 80+ group companies
- Lead acquisition accounting i.e. purchase price allocations and sign-off process, achieving an optimal intangible-goodwill mix
- Lead strategy for integrating financial reporting across the group including new acquisitions
- Design, develop and implement an effective model for impairment reviews, sensitivity analysis, audit sign-offs
- Business support to acquisitions team - influencing key decisions pre/post-deal
- Business support to group co.’s - accounting advice on restructuring, major transactions, major contracts, strategic projects, accounting policy election and IFRS implementations
- Decision support to executive management on investment performance, potential impairments
- Provide valuable inputs and influence proposals for group-wide tax-planning, acquisition structure, hedging FX exposure and optimum debt-equity mix
- Valuations - providing valuations support for acquisitions and obtaining audit sign-off
- Valuations - driving the external valuation process for financial reporting purposes and achieve the best outcome reflecting management’s intention and rationale for acquisition

Awards and Recognition:
- Gold Award for successfully implementing financial consolidation system \[Emirates\]
- Silver Award (3 occasions) for providing innovative solutions to financial reporting \[Emirates\]
- Silver Award for $400k recovery from vendors \[Emirates\] etc.

Achievements:
- Helped Emirates achieve efficiency in last mile of reporting by designing a seamless solution for financial statement preparation and publishing.
- Designed an executive summary report for financial statements review.

Successful acquisition integrations
- $170m catering group with multi-country operations within 6 months. \[dnata, 2010\]
- $150m travel group with complex structuring arrangement within 4 months \[dnata, 2012\]

Successful Projects
- Rolled-out a group-wide financial reporting and accounting policies manual \[2013\]
- Helped Emirates group achieve efficient Close-Consolidate-Report process by implementing Cognos Controller \[2007\]

Role: Business Project Manager - AP systems

The Emirates Group's centralized accounts payable (AP) has a throughput of 500k invoices covering 5000 suppliers and 70 currencies valued at AED 30 billion p.a. and a team of 45+. My responsibilities include:

* Manage (Deputy) the section with focus on timely payments, improved productivity, simplified processes and improved vendor relationships.
* Review processes to make improvements and identify scope for automation.
* Ensure processes meet well-defined control objectives and adherence to internal control framework.
* Lead Manage various automation efforts by actively engaging throughout the system development life cycle.
* Validate vendor Contracts for financial compliances and protection of group's contractual rights and revenues.
* Validate vendor pay-outs ensuring accuracy and adherence to supply terms, discounts, credits, financial procedures & authorities.

Growth path:-
1) Joined as Finance Officer - Nov-2000
2) Promoted as Finance Superintendent (controller) - Jul-2002
3) Promoted as Finance Manager - Jan-2005

Accomplishments:-
*Implemented Oracle ERP Financials 11i - AP Module
*Implemented Electronic Payments (EFT) system (Green field project)
*Implemented Invoice Matching system (Green field project)
*Implemented Fuel e-invoice receipt system.
*Contributed savings of Aed 3 million to the group by favorably interpreting contracts / detecting excess vendor claims.

HJB is a US-theme franchise restaurant in Dubai

My responsibilities:
- Manage the end-to-end operational finance of the restaurant viz., menu costing, pricing, cash control, inventory management, ordering, payroll, administration, accounts payable, financial accounting, financial planning, management reporting and audit sign-off
- Implement effective cash control process
- Maintain an optimum inventory balance of F&B
- Managing vendor relationships
- MIS and decision support to Investors and advise on optimum organization structure

Accomplishments:-
- Successfully implemented "down-sizing" leading to reduction in staff strength by 40%.

Reliance is the largest private sector group in India with a revenue of $70 billion driven mainly by petrochemicals business. In 1997 Reliance was building the world’s 2nd largest oil refinery.

My responsibilities:
- Statutory financial reporting for Reliance group of companies in the refinery complex
- Reporting project costs to senior management and obtaining audit certifications
- Accounts payable for project vendors

My contributions:
- By interpreting sales tax laws favorably obtained a refund from vendor for INR 4 million

EID Parry is Chennai-based conglomerate manufacturing sugar, fertilizers and bio products with a revenue of $350 million.

My responsibilities:
- Financial planning for seeds and cogeneration business
- Preparation of annual business plans for the business unit within tight timelines

Accomplishments:-
- Quickly understood the technical process of the cogeneration plant and established a format for reporting costs accurately.

* Performed Statutory and Internal audits across sectors viz., manufacturing (cement, granites), contracting, trusts, schools etc.
* Assisted in tax planning and administration for public companies, private companies and individuals.