The Portman Estate is a is a property estate, mainly in Marylebone, Central London.

Portman had identified weaknesses in their systems, including the financial reporting, budgeting and analysis systems.
• In Phase 1 of the project, I performed a Business Process Review, identified weaknesses, recommended corrective action and presented my findings in writing and as part of a formal presentation.
• As a result of the above, in Phase 2, Portman conducted a selection process for a Business Intelligence tool. I led this workstream, which consisted of:
• Preparing a costed project plan
• Selecting and briefing two vendors
• Preparing a detailed Functional Requirements document
• Analysing the vendors’ responses and costs
• Facilitating the vendor presentations
• Preparing a business case for board approval

Vertu is a wholly owned, but independent, subsidiary of Nokia who manufacture and sell luxury mobile phones.

Vertu had identified weaknesses in their systems and processes that manifested themselves in a high level of obsolescent inventory.
• In Phase 1, I reviewed the process of calculating the value of obsolescent inventory and the relevant provision against it.
• I developed a model that mirrored the calculation and ran a months calculations in parallel to validate the values that Vertu had produced.
• I presented my findings, both in writing and as part of a formal presentation.
• In Phase 2, which followed, I assisted Vertu in the selection process to find a Business Intelligence solution provider. This consisted of:
• Preparing a costed project plan
• Further analysing their processes to determine the scope of the project
• Selecting and briefing two vendors
• Preparing a detailed Functional Requirements document
• Analysing the vendors’ responses and costs
• Facilitating the vendor presentations

Atos Origin is a leading international IT services provider, supplying both public and private sectors.

Mainly working in Excel, I provided financial modelling support to a multi-discipline team bidding for, and winning, a £100 million Home Office contract.
• Reviewed the integrity of the existing Excel models and quantified any errors
• Produced profit forecasts & pricing models by revenue stream
• Produced supporting schedules for the contract
• Modelled and analysed the effect of alternative contract terms
• Created a handover document for the team delivering the contract
• Developed initial reporting and tracking processes

A major revenue stream for AOL is the sale of online advertising, and it has negotiated revenue sharing agreements with a number of partners.

In this role I have responsibility for the revenue-share calculations. In detail this includes:
• Review the existing (Excel based) calculations for:
i Conformity to the revenue share agreements
ii Accuracy
iii Ease of use
• Where ambiguities exist in the agreements, assess the commercial fairness of the calculation
• Continue to perform the calculations while investigating enhanced methods of calculation
i Model alternative ways of calculation to assess if any consistently favour either party
ii Review the Data Warehouse being developed in order assess its suitability for the automation of the calculation (it was originally envisaged that I should develop the calculations, but in practice my review revealed such serious shortcomings in the data that I recommended the rejection of this option)
iii Review and rebuild the mapping tables between the two systems involved in the process
iv Create a revised (Excel based) method of calculating the revenue share

PRG, a profit recovery firm with a European turnover of $54M (UK £15M), examine their clients’ transactions to identify and recover overpayments caused by duplicates, VAT errors, quantity discounts etc.

I was engaged by the European Finance Director, to help them understand and report the profitability of individual clients and contracts so that a Pareto (80-20) analysis could be performed and the subsequent reorganisation of the business could be based on accurate information.

My responsibilities included:
• Developing an invoicing system using Access (VBA) and Excel, which integrates with Sage Line 50, Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook
i Designing and developing a suitable database
ii Designing Templates for Invoicing requests, in Excel, with Named Ranges containing all necessary transactional information
iii Developing a user interface and code to facilitate the maintenance of static data and processing of transactions
iv Ensuring adequate testing prior to going live
v Producing User and Technical Manuals for the system
• Developing a system for simplifying local financial reporting using Access, Excel and Crystal Reports (embedded in a Visual Basic programme)
i Transactions were extracted from the Peoplesoft general ledger and combined with locally held project data
ii This enabled more sophisticated calculations of client profitability and the technology enabled their speedier production and distribution
• Developing and operating a number of Excel models for different aspects of PRG’s forecasting and budgeting cycles. These varied according to:
i The geographical region to which they related
ii The type of information being produced - P&L, Balance Sheet, cashflow, resource planning
iii The end recipient of the information – local operating managers/US Head Office
• Developing reports in the CMS system using Access
• Performing ad-hoc tasks for which the skills or resource were not available in-house
i Production of Statutory Accounts ensuring the correct adjustments were made for US and UK GAAP reporting differences
ii Extraction of information for Corporation Tax returns
iii Provision of information for Sarbanes-Oxley audit
iv Coordination of the Budgeting process

This consultancy company (t/o £2.5M) provide property-related project management. My brief was to improve management reporting and strengthen financial controls. I did this with a combination of system and procedural improvements including:
• Introducing a basic job costing system, using a field in Sage Line 50 to hold project numbers, and producing income statements for each project using Crystal Reports to cross-reference project data held in an Excel spreadsheet
• Introducing a finance sign-off for tender documents
• Attending business review meetings to improve the basis of the financial reports
• Attending board meetings to help explain reported results
• Recruiting a permanent Financial Controller
• As sole Finance representative at the company, I meanwhile ensured the smooth operation of the finance function:
i Regular Management Accounting
ii Operation of Accounts Receivable and Payable
iii Cash Management/Treasury
iv Production of Payroll (using Sage Payroll) for 25 staff members
v Production of VAT and Inland Revenue returns
vi Forecasting and Budgeting
vii Production of Statutory Accounts and Companies House returns

LETEC (t/o £68M - 2000) and BLLE (t/o £2.5M) were non-governmental bodies that worked in partnership in East London to provide business support, co-ordinate training opportunities and promote urban regeneration.

In March 2001, LSCs replaced TECs. Most of the assets and staff of LETEC were transferred, leaving property, some advisory services and some support staff.

Because of my previous relationship with Letec (details below), I was asked to become Interim Finance Director of the reduced company, which I did, until its liquidation in May 2003.

My responsibilities during this time included:
• Managing the financial aspects of the transfer of ongoing operations and the closure of the remainder
• Liaising with the Liquidator to ensure that assets of the rump company were correctly accounted for and distributed
• Managing the controlled reduction of the finance and related departments
• Ensuring the continuing operation of the finance functions, with a small department:
i Regular Management Accounting
ii Forecasting and budgeting
iii Accounts Payable and Receivable
iv Submissions to Funding Bodies
v Payroll for, finally, 30 staff via a bureau
vi Cash Management/Treasury
vii Production of VAT and Inland Revenue returns

Earlier, over several assignments I:
• Developed a suite of management reports using Crystal Reports to extract information from SunSystems. These included income statements, balance sheets, aged debtors and unapproved invoices. They were run at scheduled times on Crystal Enterprise and made available on the company intranet
• Provided a range of financial support including cover for key staff and specialist services:
i Production of management accounts
ii Production of grant-aid applications
iii Analysis of debtors, fixed assets and recoverable costs

easyGroup is the incubator company for the ‘easy’ brand.

They were upgrading their accounting software from SunSystems to Coda.

My role was:
• Manually creating static data in Coda
• Extracting historical transactional data from SunSystems
• Mapping the data thus extracted into the Coda structure
• Importing the converted data into Coda

Virgin were an aggressively expanding cinema group, who were implementing new financial software and had a requirement to analyse their revenue and profitability in great detail.

I was finance lead on the team implementing Coda (general ledger), Cadenza (purchase and sales order processing), Cognos Impromptu and Powerplay (reporting) and an in-house developed data warehouse.

My responsibilities included:
• Conducting research to establish business and reporting requirements
• Establishing the best source of this information - either Coda, or the data warehouse
• Designing the Chart of Accounts to ensure that the needs of the business could be met. This included the easy availability of:
i Analysis of revenue streams
ii Analysis of profitability by product group and product
iii Monitoring spend on capital projects
• Ensuring the integrity of the data with the supporting data warehouse project
• Overseeing the migration of historical data
• Assisting in the development of financial and operating reports
• Developing and delivering training in the use of the system
• Developing and documenting operating procedures
• Ensuring adequate testing of the system throughout its lifecycle

Analysis of expenditure for group companies in order to identify the underlying profit made in each. Forecasting and monitoring cashflows, at time of company re-financing.