Ben Thomas Email & Phone Number

United Kingdom

This position is based in GSK’s Global Consumer Healthcare Segment, an FMCG business with sales of £7bn+ and a presence in 140 countries. In this role I lead the internal and external reporting of the segment and support planning and delivery of commercial strategy by partnering with stakeholders at all levels of the organisation. Key Responsibilities - Supporting the commercial ambition of Consumer Healthcare through detailed brand and market performance commentaries based on in-depth knowledge of the business. Completing insightful analytics including investment appraisals, margin analysis and review of market growth levers. - Leading the delivery of consolidated management accounts to the CFO, signing off on income statement and balance sheet on monthly and quarterly basis, taking full responsibility and ownership of the process. - Line management of two direct reports.- Preparation of both internal and external communications. Coordinating and managing commentary from relevant Regional, Category and Function Directors. - Partnering with the business to build annual budgets and forecast updates. Providing rigor and challenge where appropriate and identifying risks/opportunities which may not have already been captured. Notable Accomplishment Pfizer Joint Venture Integration. In December 2018 GSK announced an agreement with Pfizer to form a new world-leading Consumer Healthcare JV. Over the last year I have led several workstreams critical to ensuring a successful integration. These included taking ownership for the design and communication of the governance surrounding restructuring planning, an initiative that will save the organization £0.6bn over the next 4 years. As the project lead it has been my responsibility to review and appraise restructuring spend plans for the entire organisation, to keep relevant stakeholders updated on the delivery of planned savings and to set up control frameworks to enable accountability for this delivery.

London, United Kingdom

In this role I worked as the Finance lead for two significant Global Pharmaceutical divestment deals; each valued at over £100m. This involved overseeing the successful transition of the divested businesses to the respective buying 3rd parties, ensuring that the transitional service contracts were adhered to by GSK and working to secure the anticipated financial benefits for GSK from each of the exit deals. Key Responsibilities - Partnering with a matrix core project team supporting all business functions (including Corporate Finance, Legal, Procurement, Supply Chain and Corporate) with decision making and risk analysis. - Primary point of contact for buying entity. Leading weekly calls with third parties to update cutover progress, share key financials and discuss any issues presenting a risk to contract compliance. Negotiating financial issues not covered in contract to ensure the best deal was secured for GSK. - Ownership and preparation of three year Deal budget and forecast updates, management of payables/receivables with buying entity, tracking of business performance vs milestone payment criteria (>$80m paid in 2016). - Financial control of Brand expenditure and implementation costs. Bottom up budget prepared for separation and service agreement expense/income for all streams and support functions. - Providing management guidance to in market Finance Directors to ensure that the approach to both management accounting and post deal close operations were correct and market specific complexities were addressed and remedied.

In this role it was my responsibility to manage the financials for GSK’s network of third-party manufacturers based throughout EMEA, partnering with the supply team to optimise the value delivered to the Consumer Healthcare business from this network. Key Responsibilities - Management of P&L and Balance Sheet for GSK’s entire Consumer third party supply network based throughout Europe, Middle East and Africa. - Line management of one Finance Analyst. - Preparation of three-year plan and forecast updates partnering closely with supply group managers and trading partners to understand the manufacturing site operations and risks/opportunities that needed to be considered when building forecasts. - Providing expert financial analysis and constructing models to assess and appraise sourcing decisions and project progress. - Leading the annual Cost of Goods standard setting exercise. Working with the business to set robust accurate standards helping to improve cost control and decision making. - Providing Senior Management with monthly reports/presentations summarising financial results, directing attention to key variances to plan and recommending remedial action where appropriate. Notable AccomplishmentNovartis Joint Venture/External Supply Integration. I worked as the lead finance contact for GSK Legacy External Supply business throughout the 2014 integration with Novartis External Supply. Engaged with key NVS financial stakeholders to educate on GSK GMS reporting/planning principles and drive alignment between the two businesses. Successfully managed entity submissions so that clear consolidated financial statements could be generated ahead of key submission deadlines.

This was a large-scale project management role, overseeing and leading the migration of European markets onto a new technical system designed to promote collaborative forecasting. Key Highlights - Successfully delivering deployments in Switzerland, Italy and Iberia markets within challenging time frames. - Building strong working relationships with European market planners, building trust to achieve stake holder ‘buy in’ for new ways of working. - Leading weekly team meetings designed to updating senior management on deployment progress. - Acquiring expertise in market level Enterprise Resource Planning, obtaining a thorough understanding of the correct responsibilities and accountabilities of different business functions in the delivery of an integrated consensus forecast. - Developing a strong skill set in Change Management. Delivering project objectives by keeping all stakeholders informed and facilitating communication between different stakeholder groups. Notable AccomplishmentsCF training Workshops. Leading CF workshops independently both in house and in market (Italy, Switzerland and Spain) throughout different stages of market deployment. Successfully delivering the agenda for every workshop within the allocated timeframe without compromising the time invested with local planners addressing specific challenges impacting their markets.

London, United Kingdom

The primary responsibilities of the role were to support the Corporate Executive Team through the provision of relevant consolidated financial analysis and to communicate any changes in corporate planning requirements to the rest of the organisation. Key Responsibilities - Supporting the provision of analysis to senior stakeholders including the group FC and CFO through the preparation of insightful analytics and financial models. - Converting complex data into simple slides designed to convey a clear message to stakeholders. - Developing an effective, tailored communication style for different regional contacts in order to ensure submission deadlines were met whilst reinforcing understanding the regional requirements for events. - Acquiring a thorough understanding of GSK’s Corporate Plan, Forecast and Target Setting processes - Developing the disciplines required for working on externally presented complex financial data including a high attention to detail and excellent time management. - Obtaining a thorough understanding of the internal and external drivers impacting the financial performance of different regions/departments.

London

The role was based in Financial Control but also incorporated a range of project work related to Sales Finance and Trade Fund Management. Key Highlights - Successfully implementing process improvement initiatives. - Developing a thorough understanding of Consumer Financial Control. - Partnering with Sales Account Managers driving improvements in promotional forecasting and invoice processing. - Partnering with non-finance functions through the conduction of Financial Control activities including Expense Management, Finance inductions and driving Working Capital optimization. - Month end responsibilities including cost centre management and reviewing/posting prepayments/accruals. Notable AccomplishmentsDevelopment of automated trade fund estimate workbook, a tool which reduced the weekly trade fund estimate from a two day process to a task that could be completed by one individual in less than 45 minutes as well as improving the accuracy which overspends and releases were captured for both current and prior years.

Cima Advanced Diploma In Management Accounting

Fully Qualified - All exams passed on first sitting

Msc, Chemistry With A Year Of Study In North America, First Class Honours

Chemistry, Exchange Year