Cheryl Leato Email & Phone Number

Chicago, Il, Us

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Hyatt'S Corporate Office, Chicago

Oversee the Real Estate Accounting team (consisting of three to five staff & senior accountants) and assigned processes within the Hyatt monthly and quarterly close. This includes: • Ensuring proper review of journal entries, monthly and quarterly balance sheet & income statement account reconciliations and analytics as well as quarterly cash flows & footnotes.• Evaluating and developing team to ensure professional growth and elevation to higher levels of responsibility.• Identifying projects to improve accounting processes and managing team to ensure projects are successfully executed. • Contributing to compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, including documentation of process areas and testing of key controls.• Customer service point-of-contact and liaison for finance groups supported by my team, international & domestic owned hotel finance teams, other accounting teams and other corporate office departments (i.e., technical & deals accounting (policies), tax, treasury, legal, etc.)• Lead working relationship with auditors during periodic, interim and year-end testing of key controls of the consolidated financials and stand-alone reporting.Focus on the following areas:• Acquisition & disposition of international & domestic hotels, land and business combinations, share sales and conversions between wholly owned and joint ventures investments, transaction costs, property, plant & equipment, goodwill & intangibles, financial statement review & analysis for statutory reporting for several international subsidiaries, straight-line rent, foreign dividend and capital contributions, real estate segment other long-term assets & liabilities and financing & operating leases for owned hotels (including implementation of new lease standard ASC 842 for operating leases where Hyatt is the lessee).

Hyatt'S Corporate Office, Chicago

Same primary responsibilities as above Real Estate Accounting Manager role with oversight of a team consisting of four to eight staff & senior accountants except with focus on the following areas:• Legal dissolution/merger of Hyatt subsidiaries, accruals, cash, marketable securities, third party debt & notes receivable, prepaids, derivatives & foreign hedges, intercompany (including domestic & international loan restructuring and intercompany capitalization), overhead & I.T. allocations, financing & operating leases for corporate & sales offices, restricted cash, related party transactions, corporate segment other long-term assets & liabilities and consolidated investments & equity and financial statement review & analysis for statutory reporting for several international subsidiaries and payroll.Key accomplishments include: • Worked with team to continually improve accuracy & efficiency of close processes making it possible to close within 5 business days.• Due to hiring freeze while working to backfill a role, team was reduced by one accountant & I reorganized tasks to accomplish same amount of work.• Worked through many manager, senior & staff changes resulting from promotions and transfers.• Worked with various departments to adjust timeline expectations for deliverables to improve month-end close process.• Took part in onboarding/education for new Director and VP of Corporate Accounting.• Trained all accounting team members through large group and individual sessions on proper use of intercompany accounts and tagging.• Participated in setup and testing for converting from Oracle 11i to R12 including review of new chart of accounts.• Identified inactive/unnecessary bank accounts for several Hyatt subsidiaries and worked with team and treasury to redirect funds where applicable and ultimately get accounts closed resulting in less time spent on bank reconciliations. Worked with I.T. to disable setup of closed bank accounts in Oracle.

Hyatt'S Corporate Office, Chicago

Assisted manager with oversight of one to two staff accountants through monthly & quarterly closes. Reviewed and ensured completeness and accuracy of journal entries, balance sheet & income account reconciliations and analytics and preparation of quarterly cash flows & footnotes with focus on the following areas:• Accruals, cash, marketable securities, debt, notes receivable, prepaids, derivatives & foreign hedges, intercompany (including domestic & international loans), overhead & I.T. allocations, leases, restricted cash, related party transactions, corporate segment other long-term assets & liabilities, consolidated investments & equity, joint venture investments and insurance (i.e., property, general liability, workers’ compensation, etc.) and property, plant & equipment for corporate office fixed assets.• Played key role in Hyatt's transition from private to public company including work on converting Hyatt's accounting records from a Jan 31 year-end to a Dec 31 year-end, ensuring accounting practices related to my areas were in line with Sarbanes-Oxley and reducing the timing of the monthly & quarterly close.

Hyatt'S Corporate Office, Chicago

Hyatt'S Corporate Office, Chicago