London, England, United Kingdom
I am a qualified ACMA, CGMA (12 years PQE) currently working at REVOLUTION BEAUTY as Commercial Finance Director for the UK and International markets. I have gained both my commercial and financial experience and expertise with experience across various sectors within the FMCG industry, predominantly in Drinks, and 10 years’ experience in the Logistics industry focused on FMCG supply chains. My previous role of was as Head of Commercial Finance at Fever-Tree looking after the UK and International markets where I was for 4.5 years. Prior to that I was at Britvic Softdrinks from 2017 when I relocated from South Africa where I worked at a multinational FMCG company, Danone, in a similar role with Business Partnering at the fore front of my objectives. I am passionate about delivering the value add required for driving business success as well as striving for continuous improvement and efficiencies that support it. I pride myself in my ability to build and maintain strong relationships and I am confident in working with senior stakeholders. I wish to broaden my experience within the Commercial Finance field in London across various industries and in progressive positions. From a personal perspective I am strong willed with a determination to succeed. I consider myself to be a hardworking and dependable individual and have an enquiring mind. I am a loyal and trustworthy person who enjoys taking on new and old challenges, with a have a passion for people enhancing my good interpersonal skills.
My role was key in supporting strategic decision making in the business, through business cases and providing insights into financial performance to senior stakeholders. I played an integral role in developing the annual budgeting and reforecasting process, with a focus on improving processes and systems through the current Business Transformation Project. Key functions included: ● Process lead for the Business Transformation workstream Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process ● Process lead for the Business Transformation workstream Commercial (CRM/TPM) processes and systems ● Process lead for the Business Transformation workstream Financial Planning Business Transformation workstream and roll out of financial planning into Anaplan and Power BI ● Delivery of strategic planning, forecasting, and budgeting ● Finance lead for Technical and Innovation projects globally ( NPD, EPD & repackaging projects) ● Business case and scenario planning analysis and appraisal ● Driving continuous efficiencies and continuous improvement across both financial and cross functional processes ● Finance lead in developing financial and commercial KPI’s in Power BI Key achievements: ● Sell in of the Business transformation project to senior stakeholders relating to the new IBP and Commercial process, including development of the Business Process Design, involving relevant stakeholders as part of the scope and maturity assessments and continued support to demand and supply planning and financial planning in the development of relevant KPI’s, dashboards and systems integration ● Supported the start up of the new Australian RTM as it moved from a distributor to direct RTM model by business partnering with the ANZ team to develop a robust business case and budget, scenario planning, financial handover to the new HoF in ANZ and CRM roll out ● Supported the successful tender of the Edinburgh Airport Bar which opened in 2021 by building a robust financial business case and relevant KPI’s
Key Functions included: ● Global business partnering with Regional Directors, Sales and Marketing teams, Demand planning, Supply Chain, Strategy, Innovation and Technical teams to help drive strategic and commercial agendas through strategic planning, budgeting and forecasting, financial analysis of business cases and business performance, ensuring robust modelling, and effectively challenge and appraise to ensure achievement of target growth and value delivery ● Financial governance and control across customer/distributor related investment ● Delivery of strategic planning, forecasting, and budgeting Key achievements: ● Developed, embedded and lead the newly created Commercial finance team, developed cross functional ways of working and reporting that support planning cycles, including business partnering 7 regions out of 9 globally on a day to day and planning basis where the team was not fully onboarded ● Developed processes, reporting models, KPI’s and tools for stakeholders to support the management of commercial and financial performance, including P&Ls, financial analysis, business cases, pricing, investment management, strategic planning, budgeting and forecasting, margin analysis and NPD tracking ● As Finance lead on the Packaging Refresh project in 2021 I supported and controlled all cost implications enabling senior management decision making and awareness of margin impact to the global business ● Supported the UK on-trade sales team by creating and providing pricing and payment scenarios and solutions in the face of the Covid-19 by evaluating the customer segmentation and prioritisation ● Developed a bespoke stage and gate process for innovation and technical projects including capex
I am accountable for the financial delivery, objective performance insight and challenge, and governance of brands within the category. Key functions: • Business partnering with Marketing, Brand Operations, Channel Operations, Channel Finance, Supply Chain Finance, Category Management, Insights & Value Strategy teams • Category strat planning, forecasting, budgeting, & insight generation • Business case analysis for projects • Finance continuous improvements The role involves the following: • Provide insight to the Category & Brand leadership team on commercial and total BU performance • Accurate and insightful periodic reporting, raising awareness of financial performance and driving plans to deliver budget commitments • Support the forecasting & budgeting process ensuring a robust, deliverable plan with risks/opportunities identified • Working with cross functional teams to optimise pricing, promotion & external category factors impacting performance • Creation of robust Category/Brand business plans through the stratplan process with Category/Brand leadership • Financial analysis & appraisal of business cases, ensuring delivery of value ambition & are in line with internal guidelines by partnering with relevant finance areas to ensure they are accurately reflected in the forecast • Present key risks & opportunities in business cases and the impact on the risk profile of the business case, tracking against the agreed business case deliverables, effectively communicating to all relevant business functions & ensuring link with business processes • Prepare post-launch analysis, identifying where projects vary from business case assumptions, identifying opportunities for value to be maintained • Provide insight on key drivers of commercial performance focusing on internal & external market aspects • Prepare volume forecasts for monthly Operational meetings for PepsiCo • Cross category & innovation tracking support
My role was aligned to a particular cluster of customers, and I was accountable for the financial delivery, objective performance insight and challenge, and governance of these customers. • Provide insight to the customer leadership team on commercial and total business unit performance, including analysis against budget, forecast and prior year • Through accurate and insightful reporting on a periodic basis, my role was to continually raise awareness of financial performance across the team, and ensure plans were in place to deliver and where possible exceed budget commitments • Support the forecasting and budgeting process ensuring a robust, deliverable plan with clear risks & opportunities identified • Protect the business by ensuring a high level of financial governance and control across all customer related investment (trade and capital spend) • Manage the preparation of robust and timely period end accounts for given customer clusters • Provide period end inputs to the scorecard activities on trade investment and adjustments, and provide commentary to explain customer spend variances • Manage the preparation of brand and prior year analysis for customer investment spend on periodic basis • Support the corrective workaround and resolution of system issues impacting customer investment spend • Finance representative at the forums for governance of promotional sign-off, input and challenge where required • Support the trade terms process, and ensured all terms are progressed in line with VO principles, both in year management and post review analysis to capture and share insights and learnings • Support and analyse pricing strategies for customers in line with JPB terms and future proposals in order to produce the most optimal solutions for both Britvic and the customers • Prepare and manage monthly customer account and financial account reviews with the Customer Account teams to mitigate potential risk and highlight potential opportunities
•Preparing the monthly rolling forecasts from volumes to net sales by customer by product •Collaborating with demand planning team on rolling forecast of sales volumes •Active involvment in the GPS process, providing financial analysis on product and customer mix, P&L’s, risk & opportunities at a top line level •Reporting monthly net channel contribution for all customers as well as identifying areas of concern and suggested improvement •Calculation of ROI on current, proposed and past promotional activities and plans •Understanding all micro-processes related to topline, within SAP, Microstrategy & Essbase •Daily, weekly, and monthly reporting of volumes and net sales by brand and trend analysis •Liaising with the CBS and AR teams to control rebate and coop spend and loading of commercial terms into TTM. • Preparation of quarterly Disney volume forecasts and royalties due •Maintenance of TTM contractual terms and policies for internal control •Approval of rebate and co-op payments •Finalization of the month end closing for volume & net sales •Daily monitoring and reporting of sales, rates, promotional spend •Daily and monthly monitoring of product and customer mix at volume, mix and price levels •Monitoring, controlling & reporting commercial spend vs rolling forecast and prior year, and implement mechanisms and BI tools to facilitate this •Providing financial & commercial analysis to enable business decisions •Supporting the sales team in developing the commercial strategy, customer plans and analyzing the impact and profitability of different strategies •Supporting top management in evaluating top line strategies from a financial standpoint. •Developed SOP's on price increases, rebates and coop control and reporting •Validation of price lists for all distribution channels •Lead the financial evaluation of impact of price increases on company margins as well as impact on business strategies for senior management decision making
• Preparation and presentation of costings for all new and existing business • Identification and development of new innovative processes and procedures to provide sustainable costing, eg. Introduction and Implementation of ABC costing for the business • Participated in the all RFP/RFQ processes, providing input and recommendations for all decision making • Liaising and meeting with potential new customers and business • Customer Profitability Analysis of all principles and customers, highlighting areas of concern and suggested improvements • Ensure SLA standards are maintained and measuring and reporting on costing targets • Management of customer master data with new customer take-ons • Provide financial and commercial analysis to enable business decisions • Contract Management; Sole custodian of all new and existing commercial agreements with the company’s customers. I was responsible for preparing and updating contracts for presentation to the principles. • Liaising with the Legal department on all customer and supplier contracts within the company and following up on all contract reviews and amendments • Distributor accounting, focusing on all imported brands, identifying and allocating profit/losses to each customer and supplier involved and ensured all import costs are accounted for • Provide input into the planning process and preparation for business cases for investments • Conducting market research and risk assessments to the business • Supply Chain Analysis involving scorecard reporting and daily volume tracking and reporting • Tracking of volumes and financial rebates relating to specific customer arrangements • Maintaining the Customer Relations Management System monthly with the latest information regarding revenue and profit for each existing customers, new and lost business opportunities • Supporting Key Account Managers regarding all commercial queries and customer take-ons, including contracts, systems integration and master data maintenance