Billie O'Connor Email & Phone Number

United Kingdom

London, England, United Kingdom

Role completed 31st March 2024.Available to start a new role Feb 2025.Following the successful sale of Milk & More (£170m TO, 1,200 FTE) in a trade sale to Freshways on behalf of Muller Group, this role was to ensure effective and seamless post sale process and TSAs.

London, England, United Kingdom

At the time of joining Muller for this role, Milk & More was a £150m+ Turnover business with 1,100+ employees and 51 Fulfilment Centres, 100% owned by the Muller Group.As Chief Financial Officer & Chief Information Officer for this M&M business, responsibility covered both BAU CFO & Transaction Lead. - Carve out and create Op Co & Prop Co, separate from Muller Uk & Ireland, complete with independent Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Forecasting, and ERP ledgers- Led Transaction, dual track Private Equity & Trade, and interaction with Investment Bank (Houlihan Lokey), Finance & Tax Advisors (EY), Legal (Osborne Clarke) and Management Advisory. Successful sale to trade.- Strategic Business Partner to the CEO on strategic direction - Relationship management with payment providers, banks, owners, and potential investors. - Drive top line and profitability through a series of initiatives; from Retention & CRM improvement, to improving addressable market, to growing ATV, to driving efficiency across the business (51 sites to 31), changes in service providers, changes to vehicle leasing terms, supplier payment terms review, agency management for digital marketing, customer journey online development, improved route profitability and efficiency). - Data, Insights, Budgets and Forecasting, KPIs and Reporting, to deliver both improved business performance, and clearer understanding of recurring revenue subscription business model- Functional coverage of Finance, IT, Property, Legal (direct and indirect team size of 80)- Board, Statutory Director & Company Secretary for two entitiesRole concluded with CFO & CEO exit from M&M and retained into owner business, Muller UK & Ireland LLP.

London, England, United Kingdom

Founded this organisation in Feb 2023. Created as a limited company, hired a team to lead and grow, and so far across 4 cohorts, we have grown the membership based subscription experience to over 500 members, with more to come.At NOVA, we are passionate about seeing Women in Leadership, and the mission of NOVA Community Ltd is facilitate this, as a membership based organisation. We do this in a number of ways:1 We create communities for female professionals to connect, meet, collaborate and create long-lasting professional friendships.2 We work with companies and recruiters to ensure brilliant female talent is found and included on shortlists.3 We bring together great thought leaders, speakers, and experts to share their expertise with the NOVA community via in person or online events.4 We create opportunities for female leaders to speak at events and share their expertise, or to be published in thought leadership articles, to broaden their reach and increase their profile.We have a series of Cohorts as part of the Community - all designed ultimately to improve the well-being and success of Women in Leadership. At Oct 2024, the Community is 500 strong and counting.⭐️ NOVA - C Suite Women in Leadership (all functions)⭐️ NOVA - CFO & FD Cohort⭐️ NOVA - Head of Finance & Financial Controller Cohort⭐️ NOVA - Women in Transformation (Finance, IT, Change)⭐️ NOVA - Women in HR (CPO, HRD, Head of)⭐️ NOVA - Women in Professional Services (Banking, PE, VC, Consultancy, Other services to Industry)

London, England, United Kingdom

A Private Members Club where senior retail executives and inspiring speakers share great conversation.The Club Membership is made up of Retail CEOs of both high end and established brands, to newer market entrants. From Fenwick to Marks & Spencer, Harvey Nichols to John Lewis, The White Company to House of Fraser, BrandAlley to The Perfume Shop, and many others. Retailers of both bricks and mortar only, to multi platform models, to Digital Pure Play. The committee organises several events a year, inviting insightful speakers to share their journey, career and experience.

Streatley, England, United Kingdom

Director, Investor & Board Advisor to GG Wildlife Experiences Ltd.An exciting tourism business offering individual customer or corporate events which focus on wildlife adventures or wildlife photography experiences, based in a range of beautiful countryside locations.

London, United Kingdom

Finance Director for the Selfridges Digital Business, responsible for driving top line and profitable growth. Financial accountability for:• E-commerce, Supply Chain, Marketing, Creative, Communications, Data Protection, Customer Strategy, including all investments.• E-commerce investment including website and CX development: from e-commerce customer journey, to website language options, to sequencing, to large scale platform change), to new payment methods, to Duty and Tax application enhancements. • Mobile App investments (iOS and Android) from large scale projects, to smaller more agile changes to drive quick returns. • All sales driving strategic and commercial developments including opportunities for growth via customer acquisition, all aspects of performance marketing (SEO, affiliates, PPC), customer retention, new market entry or development, new currency or language options, market pricing. • Strategic and Tactical decisions on Supply Chain (Warehousing and Final Mile); contract renegotiations, efficiency review, operational excellence.• Development and Leadership of a Team of 14, part qualified and qualified accountants.• Member of Digital, Programme and Finance Leadership Teams.Reason for Leaving: Voluntary Redundancy to move to CFO role within Muller (Milk & More)

London, United Kingdom

Responsible for all Capital Investment for Selfridges Retail Ltd, as well as Selfridges Group Property. Financial Accountability included:• Cost assurance and commercial decision support for Transformation Capital Roadmap Investments (£185m over 5 years). Projects included DC / Warehouse Management, “Single View of Stock” Stock Management (Oracle), Website Development, Website Replatform (IBM Websphere), App Developments, HR System (MyWorkday), Finance System (Oracle EBS), New CRM solution (Salesforce). • Driving tangible benefits from solutions delivered through the programme alongside process improvements – whether through efficiency, improved sales and profits, or cost reductions. • Inclusion of £200m+ of Store related Capital Investments over a 5 year programme; from financial roadmap planning, to business case delivery and approval, to cost assurance, to benefits delivery.• Financial oversight of Group Property Projects; from change of use analysis and business case development / review of existing properties, to tenancy agreement oversight and amendments / review, to development d presentation to the Board of a number of business cases to expand the property portfolio investments and their uses, returns.• Financial business partnering and oversight for central cost functions; including IT, HR, Finance, Procurement, Legal, Business Controls, Property.• Development and Leadership of a team of 15, qualified and part qualified accountants.

Weybridge

Working for the AH CFO as the Finance Director for the global process and system transformation, affecting all pharmaceutical wholesale core finance, operations, and commercial processes. Financial and Management accountability included:• Recruitment of several director positions for the programme: finance, change and IT.• Development and Leadership of a team of 22 finance, commercial, operations Subject Matter Experts, to deliver an as-is and to-be blueprint for end to end processes. Procure to Pay, Order to Cash, Record to Report.• Cost assurance and commercial oversight of the Programme Budget (£148m), including reporting, Board presentation, and commercial business case development.Reason for Leaving: post WBA merger, VP roles upwards all based out of Chicago. Personal circumstances restricted relocation at this time.

Weybridge

Part of the team which enabled the early completion of the merger between Alliance Boots and Walgreens to become Walgreens Boots Alliance. Responsibilities included:• Production of Budgets for the Merger process across various teams, and creating of processes and cost centres to ensure all acquisition related costs could be tracked and disclosed.• Project Managed several finance related workshops to deliver to the Due Diligence processes, ensuring all information was provided to the Dataroom in a timely fashion.• Participated in several Due Diligence related management workshops with various Exec Stakeholders from the two businesses, in order to complete the various process steps.• Presented financial results for various entities and businesses, in order to provide those as part of the transaction to understand the difference financial position for each business, and answering any necessary questions.• Worked between Chicago and London for 6 months to ensure a smooth process and transition.

Weybridge

Description covers all roles in Alliance Boots / Alliance Healthcare pre Merger:• Finance Director responsibilities for IT & Professional Services Business Unit and Entity; £60m turnover and £20m capital investment Budget per annum, and a team of 12-15 finance personnel centrally, with indirect matrix responsibility for finance personnel across multiple countries (15 Financial Controllers). • In four years, progressed and promoted internally four times to take on additional responsibilities and teams, and awarded “Employee of the Year” award by peers at the “One IT” Annual Event.• Responsible for IT and Operations strategic decision making support regarding spend across the Alliance Healthcare (Ops) and Alliance Boots (IT) businesses, totalling £865m Opex and £179m Capex, partnering with the relevant Divisional Exec Members in IT and Ops, presenting to Divisional and Group Boards.• Support of Exec Members and Senior Management with day to day Decision Making based on financial information and commercial analysis across multiple geographic markets and investment options, to improve efficiencies and increase profit.• Driving approval process for Ops & IT based capital investments, significant contracts, or leasing agreements.• Tracking and ensure investments in a profit driving arena then deliver those targets; increased sales (e.g. In Sales Order Capture type investment) or improved operating costs (e.g. In new automated technology investment for warehouses).• Management and statutory reporting responsibility for the legal entity set up for all IT Service Charging (only transfer pricing), with a team and processes transacting with 25 different countries.

Weybridge

Started with European IT responsibility, then expanded to include Operations (warehousing, wholesale, pre wholesale, logistics).

Wokingham

A premium Health & Fitness Club operator with 55 clubs. Annual turnover in 2008 of £140m, with Finance staff located at both head office and across the 55 sites totaling approximately 90 FTE.• During the 2 years with Esporta, responsibilities included supporting transaction preparation, as the company prepared for two sales; the first to David Lloyd (which did not go through), the second successful to Virgin Active. This included 5 and 10 year plan projections, data room provision and support, and presenting to potential buyers.• Oversight and restructure of the Management Accounting function which needed to be streamlined, and have more efficient processes put in place. Completed this – reducing headcount from 5 to 4, and reducing month end close from 4 days to 3.• Responsible for the timely and accurate production of Month End, Management Accounts and relevant commentary to support the result understanding.• Full management of revenue accounting, including revenue recognition, modelling of actual v expected revenue from memberships (taking into account joiners, leavers, discounts, package amendments). This could be modelled accurately to enable minimal variance at month end.• Responsible for producing and delivering all relevant documentation for external year end audit, working with the Auditors on a transparent and efficient audit.• Managing a team of 12, from Senior Management Accountants (5 years + qualified) to more junior Assistant and Revenue accountants.Reason for Leaving: following sale to Virgin Active, relocation of Finance to Milton Keynes.

• Reported into the CFO, delivering all commercial information to support decision making across the Health & Fitness estate – from memberships, to Food & Beverage, to Health & Beauty, to Racquets and other Services.• Development and Leadership of a team of 6 analysts.• Finance Support for Commercial Decision Making: analysis of impact of proposed offers, new service lines, changing of structures.• Budgeting: Responsible for ensuring a stretching but achievable bottom up budget is built for each of the 55 clubs, while also managing the top down expectations from the Exec Team.• Monthly Reforecasting at club level, consolidated into total company overview.• As a privately owned, business with some debt financing, various external stakeholder reporting was required. Responsible for all reporting including covenant packs and reviews, Quarterly Review packs for owners, and any Ad Hoc Information Requests.

Basingstoke, England, United Kingdom

• In this 6 month Maternity Cover UK entity role, was responsible for UK Company accounts, managing a team of 2, reporting into a US parent company.• Design and management of Sales Executives commission scheme to drive right outcomes for the business.• Complex revenue recognition accounting for month end and also evaluation of business opportunities.• Reason for Leaving: Maternity cover ended - stayed 2 months longer to ensure smooth transition.

London, United Kingdom

• Commercially-embedded Finance Analyst, covering Sales, Margin and Profit.• Finance Support for the Director of Home & Beauty, and his direct reports• Finance Support for everyday Commercial Decision Making for all directors within Home & Beauty, evaluating offer potential, margin agreement for products, and business investments.• Developed and conducted internal Finance Training for Non Financial People• Responsible for Operating Plan, Budgeting and Forecasting cycles• Instrumental in SAP implementation, for design and as a key super user• Reason for leaving - relocation to Fleet, Hampshire

• Complete overhaul of processes to improve control and avoid liabilities - in the case of royalty tracking and reporting, a full business process re-engineering project.• Management of External Auditors such as those from Disney.• Management Accounts for all General Merchandise: Alongside being responsible for Product Royalties, also reponsible for the Management Accounting for General Merchandise.• Led all Monday Trading Reports and weekly reviews, from production of the reports to the reviewing of them with the relevant director teams• Line management of one junior accountant.• Cover for Head Of Reporting for General Merchandise when the position was vacant (3 months) or the current person was on leave.

London, United Kingdom

Company turnover in 2006/07 of approximately £2.8bn. • Supporting Senior Directors with all aspect of finance support - Budgets, Forecast, Month End, Commercial decision making. Included Logistics (£55m annual Opex Cost budget).• Also included Capital Investment business cases and post investment appraisal. • Super user on key systems as very adept with new systems.• Reason for Leaving: Career Development

A small sports publisher. Covered all entry level accounts experience in AP, AR, GL, Bank / Cash management and management accounts in Sage.

Certificate In Company Direction, Organizational Leadership, Passed

Activities and Societies: Four in depth modules on a full time course covering: Strategy for Directors Leadership for Directors The Role.

Cima, Accounting, First Time Passes

Ba - 2:1, Business With French

2:1 Degree in Business Studies with French

10 Gcse'S And 3 A Levels