January 2015 - December 2019

FINANCE BUSINESS PARTNER

Ericsson UK Ltd

As LEAD FINANCIAL ANALYST for Industry & Society Customer Unit consisted of RWCE countries, I worked alongside the Head of Customer Unit to provide advice to drive financial risk management and forecast quality to optimise financial results. I was responsible to provide Customer Unit CU reporting to the
Board of Directors, ensuring the accuracy and quality of the information provided as strategic decisions depended on it. I was responsible for the full analysis of key financial items. Where required
I would take corrective actions to maintain high quality and control of financial statements. I was also responsible for providing financial insight to the Head of Business Control to enable strategic business decisions. I supported the Sales, Operations and Project Support teams with financial guidance to ensure complex accounting treatments are understood and reflected in their delivery structures.

Achievements:

• Introduced automation on reporting weekly/monthly "Orders Sales Margin" internal framework for the management of key deals thus removing potential failure point from manual process step
• Responsible for transforming the team to be more financially focused with tighter controls leading to improved results and increased financial awareness within the business
• Training of teams within CU finance, leading to more quality information submissions and fewer deviations from budgets

Responsibilities:

• Full analysis of Income statement and Balance sheet for the Customer Unit, providing an operational and financial overlay explaining key results and trends. Presentation to the senior management team, further used by Head of Customer Unit to report into Head of Region
• Monthly variance analysis of Orders, Sales, Margin, ACOS and Opex spend, Working Capital ensuring plans in place to make necessary changes to forecasts or drive corrective actions
• Participate in discussions on under and over absorption drivers and advising of potential plans to improve such as increasing/decreasing of hourly rates
• Prepare reports and evaluate financial consequences of strategic decisions such as loss-making deals which lead to future business from the customer. Highlighting areas for concerns and proposing actions onto the responsible persons
• Actively supporting governance by questioning the outcomes of results from a financial and operational perspective
• Follow up and provide advice during contract execution on all aspects of delivery such as internal process changes and better inventory management processes to drive more effective project results
• Overseeing SOX controls, ensuring internal guidelines are followed and internal accounting treatments followed
• Supporting internal and external audit to provide key information supporting key SOX controls and accounting directives to ensure successful completion of the compliance audit

2012 - 2015

FINANCE BUSINESS PARTNER (VODAFONE & O2 KEY ACCOUNTS)

Ericsson UK Ltd

Acted as a Business Partner to Sales and Operations within Ericsson providing expert financial advice and support on regulation compliance throughout the customer deal lifecycle as well as providing regular reporting on various KPI’s to the Board. Fully accountable for the revenue recognition evaluation process to ensure efficient and compliant structuring of the deal pre-sales. Throughout the execution phase of the deal process, I ensure risks are managed and financial performance is maximised. Where required I will initiate mitigation actions and focus on deal governance to ensure financial performance and quality is maintained, thereby enabling business outlook.

Achievements:

• Assisted in developing governance to provide early insight on challenging deals. Enabling Senior Management to focus on action plans or improvements prior to results being published to Region
• Led working capital improvement governance on key deals, driving changes to project set up and structure leading to improved margins and better inventory management
• Set up the Leasing arrangements and processes between Customers and Banks
• Implemented working Capital governance within operations leading to better financial control, exceeded the working capital target by 3 days, allowing the company to take advantage of better resource for continued growth
• Led margin improvement programm with Operations to achieve better project plans with reduced margin deviations from baseline

Responsibilities

• Advising strategic Sales and Operations on revenue recognition & risk, discounts and voucher treatments to ensure the correct presentation of business case financials in-line with accounting standards (IAS18 / IFRS15)
• Making sure the deals were reported according to the deliverables outlined in the business case whilst meeting correct financial and operational guidelines
• Providing financial advice and knowledge transfer to Sales, Operational and Project Support teams to drive effective financial management
• Challenging outcomes of deals both operationally and financially during the execution phase to ensure deliverables outlined in the business case are met or overachieved
• Highlighting if targets were not meet, suggesting the ways to mitigate and improved current position.
• Propose more effective ways to handle specific items within the deal to improve working capital.
• Supporting pre-close financial reviews on key deals to ensure correct margins are achieved or remedial plans established.
• Supporting internal and external audit to provide key information supporting key SOX controls and accounting directives to ensure successful completion of the compliance audit