Finance Controller
Cisco Systems
Total years of experience :22 years, 9 Months
Career Progression:
• Finance Controller, Middle East, Africa and Central East Europe (May 2010 till date)
• Regional Finance Manager, Middle East and North Africa (Mar 2008 - Apr 2010)
• Finance Manager, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria (Aug 2007 - Feb2008)
Finance Controller - Middle East Africa and Central East Europe (May 2010 - Present)
• Responsible for managing the accounting operations and ensuring local compliance, regulations and Statutory audit of 25 emerging market entities
• Heading and managing a team of 5 regular employees and 7 vendor employees and reporting to the Finance Director with accountability of US GAAP consolidation for EMEA entities
• Providing support to Sales & Service Finance and FP&A in the EMEA region in managing the P&L, budget and expense
• Monitoring and coordinating activities of the Chief Accountants for a large number of entities and ensuring efficient entity governance
• Preparing and reviewing the monthly and year-end reporting packages, Profit and Loss, Balance sheet for the region
• Point of contact for critical issues at an entity level and a global point of contact for all operational issues; interfacing with the Chief Accountants and the Global Ops Director
• Providing leadership and guidance to the Chief Accountants for their respective areas
• Supporting in setting ups of accounting process for new business entity
• Ensuring effective record to report (GL) delivery in line with Cisco policies and adoption of IFRS for all the potential entities
• Involved in the new business entities creation and implementation of complex accounting set ups like spares importation, buy sell entity accounting and inventory valuation etc..
Accomplishments:
• Successfully handled projects impacting the region related to process standardization, OPEX reduction, new business entities creation and implementation of complex accounting set ups
• Successfully led transition of US GAAP accounting for MEA region to Global Shared Service centre resulting in $1m savings in Contracted services for the region
• Successfully improved Internal Controls and Sox compliance in the region by implementing best practices
Regional Finance Manager - Middle East and North Africa (Mar 2008 - Apr 2010)
• Assigned responsibility of managing transition of US GAAP accounting and consolidation for MENA region to Global Shared service centre based in Bangalore
• Supporting the business analysts in budgeting and trending analysis for MEA region expenses
• Key person for analyzing and explaining the key deviations in Opex trend / budget variances for the region on monthly expense calls
• Building and maintaining relationships with outsourced Statutory & Tax service providers for compliance, execution, associated local filings and audits
• Associated with the tax team and local accounting partners to ensure preparation of Segmented P&L and Financial statements in line with IFRS
• Building strong partnership with the key customers and work groups within Cisco
• Functioning as a trusted business partner and supporting the operations team in key business projects
• Liaise and collaborating with HR and legal team for resolving legacy employment issues
• Responsible for training and mentoring outsource accountants for quality service delivery
Accomplishments:
• Recognized for ensuring 100% on time local filings and reducing delinquent statutory tax filing to zero for the region
• Closure of the legacy issue of open tax years in Egypt and resulting savings of $500K
• Achieved substantial tax savings and avoided fines / penalties by partnering with EY team locally in handling key tax audits / government inspection
Finance Manager - (Aug 2007 - Feb 2008)
• Responsible for handling A P (Procure to pay function), GL (Record to Report) and Payroll (Hire to Retire) functions for the entities
• Involved in managing escalations and acting as key business advisor to resolve issues
Senior Auditor - Assurance & Advisory Business Services
Responsibilities:
• Responsible for planning and executing the Statutory audit for various companies such as Aviation, FMCG, Banks and insurance companies in UAE
• Preparing financial statements based on IFRS and US GAAP
• Managing EY team engaged in the outsourced FP&A activities for the companies like Reuters and BT.
• Assisting Outsourced finance & MIS activities (Sales support, Commercial finance) for key customers
• Supporting the accounting services clients like Cisco, Reuters and BT in completion of statutory audit and filing requirements for the regional entities
• Responsible for organizing training and mentoring session for the new hires on the job
Accomplishments:
• Received accelerated Career Progression to Senior Auditor
• Bagged Recognition award from Clients for various deliverables
Gained exposure in the field of Statutory and Tax audits of Govt. Banks, Oil & Gas, Insurance companies, financial services, Public and Private Limited companies