ASSIGNMENTS LIST
1999 to date: Internet, Offshore Finance, and International Assignments
3D Printing firm's Production Control Philosophy optimised Cost, creating large batches and
long cycle times. Reviewed the Costing System, used LEAN, changed to small batches but
24 hour turnaround. Turnover rose 60%. Accounting Heresy - but Commercial Success.
Assisting wealthy private individual build a high – yielding Commercial
Property portfolio in England & Scotland (with other territories reviewed).
Started from just bookkeeping. Eventually involved in full spectrum of development
of the investment Portfolio, and Administration of the property business, from
opportunity generation, through project analysis, selection, viewing, acquisition,
bidding (at Auctions where appropriate) and ongoing management. Plus sourcing and
negotiating funding, and disposals. Dealing with lawyers (including Scottish law),
agents and tenants. Specialised tax experience. Director of all companies in the portfolio.
An interesting opportunity to create an ongoing business, and Wealth Transfer situation,
and to use my Portfolio Management, Business Development, general management,
deal creation, negotiating and modelling skills (particularly for risk assessment
and mitigation). The portfolio has been roughly quintupled in 18 months. The owner’s
return on capital has been raised approx x30, and will go higher.
Took the Portfolio Management module of the ICSA Diploma in Offshore Finance.
Something I had wanted to do for a very long time.
Work for a distressed Fund, in a foreign jurisdiction. The Fund was the subject of
cross- jurisdictional Regulatory attention, including the UK. The overall role
was to act as the fund’s support person, as fresh Auditors worked on a backlog
of audit years. Noteworthy personal achievements included:-
- surveying an archive of 70,000 pages of financial documentation, and
arranging (on Working Day 2), in a foreign language, for them to be
scanned, OCR’d, and indexed, so that new audit teams could work on them,
in parallel, on Working Day 4 (there was a weekend intervening!).
Included selecting the tendering suppliers (competitive tenders),
interviewing and informing them, negotiations of terms and price, and final selection.
- reconciling a 10,000 line Trial Balance for the Fund. Two other experienced
Chartered Accountants had expended over 4 man-months and concluded that the
Trial Balance had a very material difference. I applied an algorithm in
Excel and balanced the 10,000 lines in about 1 2/3rd days. In a way
that was provably accurate.
Payment provider, Isle of Man. Preparing accounts, effectively from incomplete
records, for contractors/ clients. Systems improvements to increase productivity
by a factor of perhaps 3 – 10 times.
Nov 2009 onwards
Spent much of this period acting as “carer” and “supporter” for two elderly cousins
(one 101, one 93) in Devon. The sisters had lived together all their lives,
until the youngest had a stroke in Nov 2009. Their situation is now resolved.
Recovery / creation of several years accounts for a shipping company, from partial records.
6 years to summer 2009 (part time). Compliance etc work for law firm and its
associated CSP business. Their first approach to me stemmed from the quality of
other work they had seen. Initially acted as "Compliance Backstop", reviewing (mainly)
corporate files for a group of old structures, to ensure their cohesion, correctness
and compliance, prior to anticipated Regulatory reviews. Progressed from a restricted
range of duties to be AMLO and Compliance Officer for the firm.
NXD of a small property business. Varied contributions to product offering, finance,
strategy, promotional work etc. Demonstrated to proprietor how assets worth
£ 0.8m, effectively "hocked" for a decade, could be recovered for his use,
restoring income and liquidity.
CSP and Payment Provider. Assistance in the development of a new product in
response to current legislative changes (as the IOM-UK Double Tax Agreement
was unilaterally revoked), including Parliamentary watch (as the Finance Bill
progressed), setting up of subtlety effective replacement structures, documentation,
contracts, complete customer take – on packs etc. Innovative inputs to project
management and project/product security measures. Preparation of statutory and
management accounts for entities involved, including new methods to facilitate
investigations going back 5 years. Shut – down of superseded structures. Dealing
with difficulties, including extensive customer relationship work, caused by a
mis-managed systems changeover. Rectification / reconciliation measures for
proprietarily-specified custom written software system for high – volume transaction
processing.
Short assignment in the start-up Charge Card operation of a Bank, prior to audit,
mainly guiding staff on the formats for complex operational control reconciliations.
Recovery of a 10 year backlog of statutory accounting, from an unreconciled basis,
for an employment and Fiduciary business, with added Middle Eastern complexities.
Confidential investigation of a fraud for a major facilities management company in
somewhat sensitive legal, security, regulatory, commercial and whistleblowing circumstances.
Asset realisation for a private estate, involving the management / realisation of
a complex development opportunity, and running a legal case to develop worthwhile
value from an asset previously classed as worthless. Commercial negotiations,
assembling evidence, and dealing with developers, lawyers, regulators, squatters,
and the public. Developed detailed knowledge of law of Adverse Possession,
evidence, and actions in Land Registry Tribunal.
Specialised Fund Manager and CSP This firm had attracted Regulatory attention. Core tasks were:
- review a group of funds (both Ltd and plc) for cohesion, correctness and compliance,
arrange all matters necessary to regularise their position, hold AGM's and the like
correctly, and provide a basis for proper future administration.
- review a group of CSP clients for similar aspects, recording in a systematic format
all errors, anomalies and judgmental items for attention, and passing those through
a formal review and resolution system.
- reorganise the structure and statutory administration of the firm's legal, management
and operating companies so that control and regulatory aspects were correctly implemented and clarified.
Though these reviews concentrated upon the files, implementing improvements involved
many consequential matters, including staff education; formal procedures;
installation and advantageous configuration of Viewpoint; exposure to similar
computer systems; relations with clients, auditors, suppliers and other service
firms in the structures; reporting to clients; production of Statutory Accounts
and Fund Accounts, and their improvement, developing shareholder information;
AMLO; KYC; relations with the Regulator; legal research; a putative take-over; etc.
Assignments in Slovakia advising on western Accounting methods, factory control
systems (MRP) and a range of other management and commercial issues for a large
medium-heavy engineering works, and an industrial rubber company.
Executor for Manx and UK personal estates.
Technical, Compliance and forensic work, and other assistance, for a CSP investigating
a fraud. Emphasis on Trust law. IOM "FSC Approved" for this role. My contribution
was such that a Non-executive Directorship was offered.
Assisting a major Offshore Insurance Company to raise the quality of its annual
reporting in difficult organisational and accounting circumstances. Production of
Year – End and Statutory Accounts.
Acting as Director for a CSP needing assistance with its Client companies. The
business performed technically demanding forensic work for private individuals,
and furnished large complex structures for supra-national MNC's. Risk evaluation
and assessment, technical and compliance advice, drafting documents to cover
difficult situations, and to brief lawyers, formed a large component of the work.
Company Secretary & Compliance Officer (Isle of Man FSC approved) of Offshore
Investment Fund Manager (Catagory 3 Licence) and Corporate Services Provider
during divestment of the investment business and inception of the Isle of Man
CSP legislation, with consequent workload increase. Clients were mainly high net
worth private individuals, and the atmosphere that of a private bank. Studied
module 1 of the ICSA Postgraduate Diploma in Company & Trust Offshore Planning.
Assisting wealthy entrepreneur create website for new-concept recruitment-related
service business. Involved in all aspects of site creation, operational
back-office, marketing and promotion.
Bigsave.com: Interim Financial Controller during Year End and downsizing of offices.
Project Director for a Scandinavian-backed offshore Internet startup. Major
contributions included: creating "force the thinking" financial model (which tripled
the revenue forecast), mediating difficult interpersonal situation to create better team
spirit, setting up the management and staff communications structure, creating action-orientated
project plan to control launch, various Content suggestions to improve the product
offering, suggesting marketing strategy to reduce launch costs.
Project in Romania advising on western Accounting methods, factory control systems
(MRP) and various other management and commercial issues arising for a large electrical
equipment manufacturing entity.
Project in Georgia (former Soviet Union) reviewing and advising on the financing and
other management issues surrounding a food ingredients processing factory.
For senior management of Amazon.co.uk wrote large (12mb) complex financial model to
evaluate plans to expand into Europe and new product areas. Client's design
requirements emphasised need for:-
- maximum flexibility in manipulating timescales and all other evaluation
parameters, for a large matrix of products and markets, combined with
- simplicity at the user input interface
- transparency and "checkability" in showing results, and
- simple reporting summations of assumptions and combinations of projects considered by the plans
1993-1999 Systems Recovery Management assignments on an increasing scale.
Managed 50 staff in non-performing accounts department of international petro-chem
engineering contracting firm, which had had 2 MD's, 2 FD's, 2 computer systems, and
approximately 4 controller/chief accountants in the previous few months. Major problems
in IT, reconciliations, quarterly and annual closes, audit viability. Installed project
management and Recovery monitoring controls, improved IT systems, coached, trained and
motivated staff. Also handled problems in statutory compliance, contract valuation, Joint
Venture accounting, international liaison and control, tax matters, in UK and abroad,
especially Middle East.
For extremely fast-growth SAP installation contractor, tested, debugged, controlled
rewriting of, and installation for, custom-written job costing software suite, integrated to other systems.
Subsidiary of Fortune top-10, banking licence and ability to trade jeopardised by
threat of audit qualification. Problems included computer system poorly installed 21
months before, weak accounting, ingrained process and organisational problems.
Personally recruited, led, directed, team of 50+ accountants to recover 18 month
backlog in reconciliations. Designed ancillary project to systematically investigate
underlying causes of accounting difficulties and implement necessary process and
software changes under suitable controls.
Dimensions:- cost £5.5m, duration 10 months, over 80 gb of data, 50 accounting heads
plus IT staff, about 12,000 accounts. Significant project management and planning content,
in addition to de facto line management responsibility.
Summary of earlier projects
- Assisted public CA establish outsourced total accounting/admin service for
his client portfolio, and recover backlog of work on major clients
- Finance & Admin Manager in fast growth (70% pa) connectivity software group.
Fifteen staff covering finance, personnel, shipping and facilities during
European expansion. Restored seven month backlog in reporting, installed cash
controls, forecasting systems, provided budgets, forecast models, information
to support 3 rounds of financing. Coached and trained staff.
- Financial and manufacturing controls review for packaging subsidiary of US MNC
- Reporting, modelling, systems installation for prestigious retail fashion chain
- Hi-tech venture-backed Queens Award Co, interim FD while senior management changed
- Acquisition appraisal & reporting system developments for Schroder-backed motor distributor
- Interim FD in £40m MLM consumer marketing Co, during expansion into two Scandinavian countries
- Accounts procedures restructured for £14m Disney licensee
- Technical and commercial improvements to MRP system, for medical equipment engineers
- Accountant during takeover and reorganisation of major AutoCad distributor
- Non-exec FD for food distribution company - developed accounting and databases
1991 – 1993 Funding and M&A - ±50 investment and project appraisals, for fees and for
own account. Examples of projects:
- Sale of recruitment consultancy
- Pre-startup planning and modelling for Peoplebank.com, the pioneer recruitment website
- Property workout - reporting, banking and creditor relations.
- European MNC - developed confidential strategy which resolved affiliate's weak
performance without acquisition expense
Own account funding as Business Angel
- Software House - project evaluation, modelling, inputs to the product and the user manual
- Office Furniture distribution - project traded below plan due to recession, required personal
involvement, was sheltered within another business and eventually closed
1989 – 1991 Finance Director / Consultant - giving support to firms from £0.1m to £200m
- DHL International. Strategic counsel & consultant to MD and Controller.
Projects enhanced strategy, efficiency, operating quality, future competitiveness and
quality of governance. Wide variety of PC & large scale Unix custom and packaged
software e.g. Uniplex. Improved high volume Billing Systems. Technical innovations
in a Call Centre. Document Image Processing project (scanning, OCR, Workflo technologies etc)
- Non-exec FD for voice processing Co, while technology moved from analogue to digital
- Interim FD in LAN Co, Systems Recovery Management, new systems, business planning
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EMPLOYMENT CAREER
1988-89 Head of Finance & Administration - XP Express Parcels Systems
UK T/O £12m, (Europe £70m), 50% pa growth, 250 heads. International multi-site service
business, independent subsidiary of KLM, offering overnight delivery throughout Europe.
High volume, low value transaction processing.
Hired to raise the quality of F & A to match that of the Operation. Installed new
computers, billing, control and reporting systems. Large Backlog recovery. Budgeting,
property and secretarial work. Leadership through a difficult takeover.
1985-88 Financial Director - Allis Chalmers (GB) Ltd
$2bn US MNC. UK offices, Scottish plant, BS5750 Pt II. Leading industrial brand.
Mineral processing machinery manufacture and distribution worldwide. Major turnaround
following UK miner's strike. Used all previous experience to implement new custom
accounting, IT and operating systems. 25% less staff, but comprehensive responsive
planning, forecasting and reporting illuminated every area of operations, made management
proactive, propelling strategy, new approach to product design, organisational change, etc.
Maximised Treasury benefits of international trade; acquired company to add new product
line. Instituted “Philosophy of Little Steps” as an early version of Kaizan, especially
as regards software innovations for productivity. Detailed information and strategic
advice to Board took company from losses and
over-borrowed, to cash rich, with highest ROI in the industry. Obtained accolade of
"cleanest audit in the Thames Valley" (Price Waterhouse).
1983-85 Pioneer Interim FD combining line and project responsibilities in (8)
"Systems Recovery Management" exercises on collapsed accounts departments. Also:-
- Controller in an export/ import US MNC whilst managing Systems Recovery
- Install G/L and import/export procedures for a hi-tech pc distribution start-up.
- Treasury shipping and Europe-wide consolidations for a US semi-conductor firm.
- Costing and pricing systems for an engineering firm.
One year as Controller of MicroScope Ltd, systems & software provider to Holiday Tour
operators, travel videotext and comms markets, whilst turnover quadrupled, prior to full London listing.
1980-1983 Management Accountant - GKN Vandervell Ltd
T/o £35m, automotive bearing manufacturers, leading industrial brand. Shop floor accounting.
Accounts and systems (including MRPII) for a group of departments (£10m) lacking proper
controls or reporting. Modelbuilding and large capital project appraisal of a new process,
then monitor development. Significant cost reductions.
1979-1980 Financial Accountant - Dresser Wayne Inc
US MNC, petrol pump and meter manufacturers, formerly the market leader. High pressure
position with very high quality computerised systems and extremely tight deadlines. 11 unionised staff.
Earlier
Cranfield MBA. Consulting and a period in Electronics
Early industrial career in Internal Audit and business reorganisation, with GKN and Wilkinson Match
Provincial articles (firm is now KPMG) then "Big 6" London experience.
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