Senior Finance Analyst
Qatar Airways
Total years of experience :10 years, 6 Months
Responsible for business finance support for QR’s international hotel portfolio in reporting, cash management and business cases.
Providing due diligence support for evaluating new real estate investment opportunities and exploring deal structuring options.
Significant contributions in the following projects/deliverables to Executive management:
1. Annual QR Industry Benchmarking: Gather financial data and operational stats of the pre-identified peers, and streamline accounting adjustments to facilitate comparison. Compute airline KPIs and financial ratios which are each then used to rank and evaluate performance of QR vs. peer group. Designed PowerPoint theme and slides for the presentation deck that is delivered to the QR Board.
2. Bankers Presentation/ 5 year Business Plan: This presentation is typically held once in 4-5 years, with the most recent being that of 2018 held in Seattle. My scope involved conducting research and analysis on Qatar's economy highlighting impacts and benefits of blockade that stimulated growth, infrastructure and entrepreneurial developments, GDP trends and expectations as well as other macro analysis - while simultaneously preparing and designing slides. Presenting QR historical performance and forecast was also an integral part of the project.
3. Internal Management Budget Booklet: Consolidated financial statements, designed reports and prepared schedules that formed part of the annual booklet to the senior management. This booklet and/or its supporting schedules were used throughout the budgeting cycle by the senior management for reviewing variances and/or trends at Group level across various departments, cost centers and operations.
4. Monthly Reporting: Post monthly GL close, review variances to budget and last year while preparing the Management Booklet that is delivered to GCEO, GCFO, CFO and VPs. This booklet includes various financial statements by airline operations, KPI highlights, Unit Cost analysis, Waterfall reports and other schedules. This involves coordinating with other Business Finance teams for deliverables and variance reviews.
Other tasks include Data Visualization, Ad-Hoc support for Internal Business Cases & handling data requests.
Reporting directly to the CEO, I provided feasibility studies of new projects, potential spin-offs, CAPEX and miscellaneous new ideas or changes proposed in operations that could potentially affect the bottom line. These reports include forecasts, break-even analysis, payback, IRR and NPV calculations as well as sensitivity analysis of multiple variables to see how they affect profitability. Some of the pre-feasibility reports have also been submitted as part of applications to QDB and other organizations. Occasionally contributed in preparing quotations, tender submissions as well as cost estimations.
As part of my Business Development duties, proposed ideas and strategies for advertising, marketing and growth for Al Emadi Stones and Etisaq Technologies. These were often penned down as business plans and submitted as part of partnership applications. Most of the advertising plans have been successfully carried out taking into consideration traveling periods of potential customers, business seasonality and platform suitability for reaching maximum audience at a reasonable price.
I have successfully implemented CRM software for Al Emadi Stones and the same is in process for Etisaq Technologies. On a daily basis, I would monitor the status of every inquiry and status of deals on the CRM implemented and notified managers for appropriate actions including follow-ups and submissions. From the data gathered on the CRM, I prepared monthly analytical reports that visualized customer base growth, sales funnel and amounts tied up or expected at each stage. The data gathered from CRM also served as an input for financial forecasts.
Assisting the founding team of the startup project to identify growth opportunities supported with industry research, competition analysis and customer validation. Also responsible for formulating business models which are viable given the nature of the project, identifying sources of revenues and potential partnerships. Evaluated feasibility of revenue streams while estimating associated costs and risks. Prepared 5 year action plan with the founding team and projected revenue and cost streams for estimating budget requirements. Computed financial measures to be presented at the demo day for potential investors.
Consulted QDB for a specific client-proposed business. This involved conducting a feasibility study based on primary and secondary market research and analysis, and providing entrepreneurial guidance to the end-client in terms of strategic positioning and marketing.
Primary market research was performed to identify service lines, product lines, market verticals and market opportunities for Qatar and the GCC. Secondary market research involved analyzing publications by government agencies and statistics compiled by organizations to estimate industry growth, product demand and supply. This included creating a positioning chart of various direct and indirect competitors and estimating a price range for the proposed services.
Reported all the findings in the form of a report and business plan presentation that also provided further guidance on strategic positioning and marketing implementation, along with risk assessment.
Q-SmartLab Newsletter is a student-run outreach initiative and a product of Carnegie Mellon University's Q-SmartLab. This newsletter provides coverage on student analysis and take on hot-business topics using the labs research tools like Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters Eikon and Zawya. Being a leading and involved part of the first issue that covered the recent oil price price, my role involved:
-Conducting a detailed background analysis of the oil and gas sector entailing demand supply dynamics and other factors.
-Designing a timeline analysis to reflect the recent events in the global oil and gas market and corresponding price movements.
-Editing all the articles correcting any discrepancies in historical analysis or outlook on Qatar, Russia, China, Malaysia & Japan.
I have also penned the Editorial section of the inaugural edition of this newsletter whereby I presented a brief research on the recent O&G turmoil in relation to shale oil production in the USA v.s. KSA.
This role also involved communicating and coordinating student contributors for timely update of articles according to recent data and in-time submissions.
Synthesized financial statements of all 42 companies listed on the Qatar Stock Exchange using Zawya and Bloomberg for analysis tenacity. Formulated a robust return model for each industry expressed by fundamentals and technicals using regression methods.
Our research was aimed at finding a model keeping in mind that investors have access to only the current quarters financial reports (often delayed access) and not of the quarter's return they want to predict. It differs from other models also because we place emphasis on the fact that every industry has its own dynamics and some factors matter more than the other depending on the industry type.
Given all the constraints and information available, we were able to find variables to include in each industry's return equation. For instance, our model predicts next quarter returns in banking industry with a negligible mean squared error of 0.0001.
Explained underlying concepts of accounting principles and rules to students through real world examples for better understanding. This was done by conducting office hours in order to tutor the content covered in class and clear doubts. The most challenging aspect was to explain terms and concepts in a day-to-day language and also to justify an approach or principle's application as opposed to an approach suggested by student.
Assisted students in finding scholarly articles from various databases for their thesis project work and in citing resources. Provided feedback to students about their homework assignments and quizzes voluntarily as part of grading duty. Managed confidential information while updating the database with grades and coordinated with other course assistants.
Acted as a link between students and professor conveying any information of importance. This involved conveying course feedback from students during office hours to professors and vice versa.
Shadowed team members in Retail Banking, Trade Import-Export and Remittance department.
Retail Banking:
Handled customer queries while managing their account requests and updated database simultaneously. This involved managing requests regarding opening accounts, credit card cancellation, loans for different tier companies or individuals, card activation, bank statement request for customers, clear cheques, reports, processing vouchers, issuing notices for issuing one/more cheques without funding, linking credit card with current accounts and processing cheque book requests.
Trade Import-Export:
Reviewed trade contracts and highlighted documentation discrepancies.This involved understanding all the steps starting world check of both the advising and issuing bank, advising to beneficiary bank till the final stage of settlement. It also consisted of calculating the negotiation charges by the bank, understanding the various type of payments (at sight, bill of exchange or cheques), debiting the customer accounts and finally releasing the original documents.
Provided customer service to faculty, staff, students, and other visitors to the department with a general knowledge of the department’s processes
Managed the receiving and distribution function by assisting the NU-Q purchasing function. This includes working with customs requirements as well as coordinating and sorting incoming/outgoing shipments from/to Evanston.
Managed and administered documents including invoices, expense reports, reimbursements, student account receipts, student exit permit request, and other items for the department in "Image Now" workflow.
Retrieved scanned and/or original backup of transactions for auditors and others.
Assisted with department's general correspondence and mails.
Assisting in special projects related to library space, resources and services.
Skilfully engaging in digitization projects along with managing daily on-desk duties.
Concentration: Finance Minor: Economics Highlight: Developed a portfolio with classmates worth a million Qatari Riyals for Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani & was successful in pitching 4 stocks to the board. This involved DDM, DCF and FCFE (or economic) valuations of all the stocks listed on the Qatar Stock Exchange, researching on the shortlisted companies, analyzing investor reports, future projects and optimal portfolio construction. Formulated a return model tailored uniquely for each industry for investors in Qatar. This was intended to help investors estimate returns for next quarter given the publicly available information. This model predicted returns with a mean squared error of 0.0001 and worked significantly well for banking industry. Placed on Dean's List for 4 semesters
C.B.S.E Gold Medalist