Daniel Gardner

Manager FP&A and Systems at First Bus

Dursley, England, United Kingdom

About

I can help you automate your systems and become AI ready for finance. The coming years will impact finance more than most departments. You need more than just an IT solution. You need a systemic approach to develop your organisation and your people. I can help you solve this problem.

Experience

  • First Bus (City Of Bristol)
    • Manager – FP&A & Systems
      Apr 2026 - Present · 3 mos

      FP&A Lead, partnering and providing financial support to the C-Suite & Senior Leadership team, leading master data initiatives, process automation, designing and coding budgeting, forecasting and 3/5-year long range planning. Promoted to lead FP&A and Systems function with 3 direct reports. Delivered full rebuild of OneStream forecasting and planning environment, improving forecast accuracy and cycle time by 4 weeks. Restructured team operating model and developed new suite of management reporting systems. Leading divisional master data programme integrating solutions across all pipeline Finance IT.

    • Operational Finance Business Partner
      Apr 2023 - Mar 2026 · 3 yrs

      Led design and delivery of a fully cloud-based forecasting system across 100+ entities, reconciling cashflow automatically; delivered on time and on budget. Drove end-to-end data cleansing across dozens of systems, resolving large-scale base data errors across ten teams. Designed process maps in MS Visio and aligned divisional policy to anticipated UK SOX standards. Trained 40 colleagues on the new system; built a self-serve online training library. Seconded to Group to lead Climate Governance and HR Finance workstreams. Developed automated links for payroll and headcount planning, fixed assets and contracts Developed an XPA approach to collect and distil inputs from hundreds of colleagues Providing challenge and support to SLT/Exec level colleagues to drive performance across the entire PL.

    • Finance Business Partner
      Apr 2022 - Apr 2023 · 1 yr 1 mo

      Finance lead for operating companies with 1,000 employees and £70m turnover. Managed full P&L forecast and all commercial-centre finance contact. Led £3m loss-making depot through complete closure, including 500+ redundancies.

  • Senior Finance Business Partner - D2C at Hunter Boot Ltd
    Dec 2016 - Jan 2022 · 5 yrs 2 mos

    FP&A Lead across D2C (Ecommerce & Retail) channels, partnering and providing financial support to the C-Suite & Senior Leadership team, trading & KPI analysis; management accounting; budgeting, forecasting and 3/5-year long range planning. B2C Finance Analyst Global role working with Heads of E-Commerce, Retail and Legal Built cloud-based DTC forecasting model from scratch in Adaptive; rolled out globally in 6 weeks. Delivered financial support for VC buyout; prepared and reconciled all board-level data packs. Led global merchant fee overhaul (>£1.5m annual spend), consolidating 30 suppliers to fewer than 5. Launched new e-commerce distribution channel across 15 territories and opened a new overseas retail store within 6 months of board approval. Reduced global discount rates from >30% to 10–15% through SKU-level margin analysis. Recovered >£300k in returns provisions through 4-year data reconciliation. Finacne lead for the global overhaul of customer service to a new provider including transfer of all records Launched new store in foreign territory in 6 months from board proposal to doors open CAPEX reviews drove £300k of increases to asset Direct negotiations on supplier legal challenges - £250k saving Managed Insurance claim on £400k property damages

  • Corporate Controller at L'Oréal
    Feb 2016 - Dec 2016 · 11 mos

    Commercial Controller for all Corporate Shared Services in the UK & Ireland 23 different cost centres and 20+ directors Successful roll out of new internal forecasting system with complete rec of prior year Headcount control for 4th biggest market (800 people)

  • Commercial Finance Analyst at The Body Shop
    Apr 2014 - Jan 2016 · 1 yr 10 mos

    Business partner for UK retail, ecommerce & marketing teams Prepared board papers for £1m new ecommerce channel – given award for the quality of the work Reconciled management accounts to identify £100k savings

  • Management Accountant at University of Sussex
    Feb 2014 - Apr 2014 · 3 mos

    Short Term Contract role providing interim management accounting support