Group Director Finance
Kuzama Co. (Previously known as Lavender Flavor)
Total years of experience :26 years, 8 Months
KUZAMA Co. is one of the biggest entities in F&B Casual and Fine Dine business industry, they own 4 unique brands namely Lavash, Off-White, Armin, OVVI with its multi branches, by using SaaS technology.
My main responsibilities are as follows;
- Leading accounting and finance team and defining the strategy by ensuring the adequate controls to be in place
- Reviewing management financial statement, reporting pack (PL, BS, CF analysis), budget with different scenarios for management approval and variance report with corrective action plan.
- IFRs implementation as SME converted to full IFRs entity.
- Dealing with bankers, auditor and Tax consultant of the company.
- Reviewing cost estimation for food, packing material, recipes and ensuring sufficient purchase quotation for transparency
- Prepared feasibility report for opening of new restaurant including Valuation, NPV and IRR analysis
Jabal Omar Development Company (JODC) - Jeddah - Controller Finance/Accounts
•Jabal Omar Development Company, arguably one of the largest real estate developer in the region and one of the largest listed companies in the Saudi Tadawul Stock Exchange. Its flagship project, Jabal Omar, is a multi-use real estate mega development project within a walking distance of The Grand Mosque of Makkah. Business lines mainly comprising of Hospitality (Hotels), Commercials (Malls) and Sale of residential property.
My area of work includes following:
•Reviewing financial statement including monthly packs and consolidation
•Ensuring compliance of all IFRS including adoption of new one such as IFRs 15 and IFRs 16.
•Supervising team members in their work
•Prepared feasibility report to compare employees housing allowance vs constructing company’s own housing project.
•Coordinating for actuarial valuation of EOSB and ECL (expected credit losses)
•Ensuring compliance of policy and procedure manual and incorporating improvements wherever required.
•Reviewing GL, fixed asset register, bank reconciliation and ensuring all accruals including financial charges in line with respective agreements
•Preparing various reports including ratio analysis, actual vs. budget with reasoning and prevailing challenges including loan restructuring, liquidity issues and so on.
•Coordinating with external auditors and complying with their requirements
•Coordination with subsidiaries and hotels for their financial information and reports by ensuring alignment with SLAs. Moreover, analyzing hotels operational ratios such as occupancy, ADR and RevPar and reviewing Funds financial statement
•Coordination with various department including PMD to discuss about their reports such as project completion %, milestones report etc.
•Management presentations
Hidada Contracting Ltd deals in steel fabrication and EPC projects. My main responsibilities include:
Liquidity and project bank facility
- Liquidity improvement - coordinating with concerned department to avail better credit terms and better project contract terms as well as restructuring of loans
- Introduced discount formula on better payment terms and developed customer credit policy, procedure and assigning of credit limits and reviewing bank facility in respect of project including project cash flow, coordination and negotiation with banker and monitoring bank covenant
Financial Statement, LOA and JV Review
- Reviewing management financial statement (PL, BS, CF) for BOD
- JV analysis for new investment as well as merger of two business units and preparing discounted discounted
- IFRs implementation
- VAT implementation including documentation, impact assessment, incorporating VAT clauses in contracts.
Budget and Cost control /optimization
- Reviewing final budget version for management approval.
- Ensuring sufficient purchase quotation for transparency
- Material and manpower cost control in terms of prices and hours.
- Reviewing of cost estimation for projects, develop budget vs. commitment report, Variance analysis and suggesting corrective actions
In order for preparation of privatization, the airline was restructured into core units: I was primarily charged with the responsibility of new finance SAP system Implementation as well as part of core team for organization re-structuring, business process reengineering and optimization studies.
Got the opportunity to work in the following units of Saudi Arabian Airline (mainly to prepare):
- Real Estate Development Company - Financial Controller: The main activities include managing, developing and maintaining real estates, project development, designing, construction and investment in real estate in addition to leasing and maintaining of Saudi City Compound.
- Saudi Airline Aero Space and Engineering Industry - Finance Manager: The unit mainly deals in maintenance of airframe, engines and components and carries out different checks of aircraft at different stages.
Worked with M.A. JAFFALI (A manufacturing concern mainly deals in confectionary and food items) as Corporate Finance Manager, looking after operations (including new investment/divestiture) of different countries like Malaysia, Lebanon, Egypt, Philippine and managed a large finance team.
I started my career in Saudi Arabia with UMQ which is one of the busiest hospitals having modern treatment facilities.
Bosch is a well known Pharmaceutical Company in Pakistan being agent for various products. I supervised a team of 12 people within the finance department with responsibility of forecasting cash flows daily bank position, approval of receipts, payment and journal vouchers, monthly payrolls, etc.
Completed mandatory training period and got trained by qualified seniors and managers to provide me with a strong foundation of audit and accounting while working at levels from junior auditor to supervising senior auditor.