Chris Downing Email & Phone Number

Sydney, Nsw, Au

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Leading the Data Science team responsible for providing Data Science & Analytic support to the APAC Sales org.In my current role, I lead a distributed team (Syd, Mel, Shanghai) responsible for supporting the APAC Afterpay Sales and account management organisation. We are responsible for providing strategic support for both merchant & consumer growth, as well as product performance support for newly launched products or merchants. • Developing machine learning models to identify best… Show more Leading the Data Science team responsible for providing Data Science & Analytic support to the APAC Sales org.In my current role, I lead a distributed team (Syd, Mel, Shanghai) responsible for supporting the APAC Afterpay Sales and account management organisation. We are responsible for providing strategic support for both merchant & consumer growth, as well as product performance support for newly launched products or merchants. • Developing machine learning models to identify best strategic approach for managing consumers of merchants• Understanding and advising on performance of new or existing products, or new or existing merchants• Advising on performance in context of BNPL market growth and broader retail growth. Identifying and recommending opportunities to drive growth in new or high potential verticalsSignificant achievements• Led the process to identify root cause of transaction declines with a major Australian retailer. Identified and proposed strategic options to alleviate declines while merchant side solution was developed.• Led project to identify incremental value of newly launched product, and produce forecasts of product performance, cannibalisation, revenue and net profit over coming 12 months, over a range of potential consumer uptake estimates.• Developed a machine learning “consumer churn identification” model, intended to preemptively identify consumers at risk of churn based on a range of consumer behaviours. Productionised this model and integrated with an existing “Next Best Action” model• Developed a machine learning “consumer propensity” model, which identifies and recommends the likely most successful marketing approach that should be applied to an individual consumer, based on their previous online and instore shopping behaviours, previous transaction declines etc. Show less

Sydney, Australia

Acting CFO Jan 2020 to Mar 2021Market leader for eCommerce in Australia with billions dollars of annual turn-over. Sat on the AU management team, responsible for AU Finance organisation (financial analytics, local accounting, financial planning, strategy development)• Led local accounting & performance modelling/forecasting team; primarily responsible for forecasting and managing P&L performance of the Australian business• Led annual financial planning process… Show more Acting CFO Jan 2020 to Mar 2021Market leader for eCommerce in Australia with billions dollars of annual turn-over. Sat on the AU management team, responsible for AU Finance organisation (financial analytics, local accounting, financial planning, strategy development)• Led local accounting & performance modelling/forecasting team; primarily responsible for forecasting and managing P&L performance of the Australian business• Led annual financial planning process culminating in creation of annual budget and operating plans.• Developed detailed performance commentary for the Australian management team and regional leadership. Developed ‘close the gap’ plans & initiatives when missing forecast.• Led the ‘investment council’ process to identify available excess funding, and allocate funding to proposed projects (evaluated on both an ‘immediately commercially viable’ basis, as well as ‘strategically important’ basis)• Conducted detailed ‘total market’ and ‘individual competitor’ tracking analysis & reporting, from publicly available data.• Supported AU management team in development of long term strategySignificant achievements:• Rebuilt the AU accounting team after a period of rapid change (late 2019). Stabilised the team after departure of previous CFO and hired & trained new accountancy team. Enabled a successful 2020.• Led the AU finance org through a breakout year in eCommerce, reacting to rapid and dramatic shifts in consumer demand. Achieved budget in all quarters, substantially accelerated growth, and over delivered on operating income.• Supported Australian eBay sellers experiencing financial hardship via development of delayed invoicing process• Led rate card (pricing) review, to investigate feasibility and likely impact of price change, culminating in execution of new pricing structure, which delivered approx $6M additional revenue. Show less

Sydney, Australia

Led a team of analysts, supporting AU site & product development, Seller strategy, and Mobile strategy• Financial viability & impact modelling of proposed site enhancements & policy changes• A-B testing of site & product changes (from a financial & customer metric perspective)• Deep performance metric analysis, forecasting & insight generation• Development of tracking & reporting structures as well as forecasting of financial & operational measures•… Show more Led a team of analysts, supporting AU site & product development, Seller strategy, and Mobile strategy• Financial viability & impact modelling of proposed site enhancements & policy changes• A-B testing of site & product changes (from a financial & customer metric perspective)• Deep performance metric analysis, forecasting & insight generation• Development of tracking & reporting structures as well as forecasting of financial & operational measures• Supporting strategy development with deep analytic insightsSignificant achievements:• Developed model to share listing content between eBay AU & Gumtree AU (so listings from each platform would appear on the other). Developed strategy and gained executive support; agreed on transfer pricing between entities; provided deep analytic support to product development. Product has now been rolled out in multiple markets (UK, DE, CA, IT) and generates over $200M in incremental sales p/a.• Provided analytic support and developed from scratch operational reporting for locally developed advertising product, including conducting an A-B test to ensure that the developed product was not detrimental to overall site activity. This product was a completely new & viable revenue stream for the AU business, and delivered revenues of approx. $2M per annum.• A-B tested & verified the impact of text & graphical advertising on the Australian site. Verified net positive revenue impact of advertising• Led the analytic project to identify and remove duplicate listings on the AU site, successfully managed to identify and remove 62% of duplicate listings on the AU site Show less

London, United Kingdom

Led a team of 3 analysts, supporting Payments & Buyer protection programs on European platforms.Primary responsibilities were supporting development of Payment Intermediation (PI) product, and risk management / loss management of eBay Buyer Protection program (eBP)• Analytic support of development of ‘Payment Intermediation’ payment product, revolutionising the way eBay Buyers & sellers transact. • Responsible for strategic support, A/B testing, modelling & forecasting… Show more Led a team of 3 analysts, supporting Payments & Buyer protection programs on European platforms.Primary responsibilities were supporting development of Payment Intermediation (PI) product, and risk management / loss management of eBay Buyer Protection program (eBP)• Analytic support of development of ‘Payment Intermediation’ payment product, revolutionising the way eBay Buyers & sellers transact. • Responsible for strategic support, A/B testing, modelling & forecasting, and report development.• Advised offshore data warehousing team on required development of supporting data structures• Internal consultant to EU DE risk teams regarding the financial impacts of various proposed risk initiatives and policy changes, including Basel III ‘stress testing’. Examples include alteration of payment ‘hold duration’, financial impact of proposed Warranty program, financial impact of alterations to Seller Risk segmentation, financial impact of removal of ‘category exclusions’• Developed the monthly forecast methodology, used to estimate the required monthly loss provision for the ‘eBay Buyer Protection’ (eBP) program.• Managed the end to end monthly provisioning process of the aforementioned $80M EU Buyer Protection loss budget. Provided performance & variance commentary up to Senior Director budget owners.Significant achievements: • Significantly improved the monthly detail available pertaining to DE & UK eBP financial losses. Much greater variety of tracked metrics, available by useful cuts & segmentations.• Recognised as a reliable senior analytic partner by Senior Directorship of both UK & DE businesses, asked to provide guidance for sensitive projects outside my typical purview, examples include customer reaction modelling• Awarded for performance supporting the EU retail seller team in developing a financial forecast relating to proposed Warranty Program. Show less

Sydney, Australia

Responsible for all aspects of revenue side financial forecasting, modelling and reporting, as well as operating metric management & analytics. • Responsible for all country level financial & operating metrics forecasting for the AU business. Forecasts compiled for the purposes of budgeting, target setting, and general reporting. Forecasts prepared at monthly intervals, for up to 2 years in advance, with daily granularity.• Conducted comprehensive financial impact modelling… Show more Responsible for all aspects of revenue side financial forecasting, modelling and reporting, as well as operating metric management & analytics. • Responsible for all country level financial & operating metrics forecasting for the AU business. Forecasts compiled for the purposes of budgeting, target setting, and general reporting. Forecasts prepared at monthly intervals, for up to 2 years in advance, with daily granularity.• Conducted comprehensive financial impact modelling for proposed site, pricing & policy changes such as: mandatory payment method proposals, Standard rate card price changes and price promotions.• Solely responsible for completion of revenue side month end processes, including revenue recognition, verification, management & reporting of closed revenues, preparation of “actuals to forecast” comparison reports & detailed variance commentary.• Provided weekly performance reporting & commentary to the senior AU management team, to facilitate senior APAC weekly performance review.• Developed & compiled daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly metric and revenue tracking reports. Level of detail required ranged from extremely granular reports required for senior management, to broader view reports designed for colleagues with little financial experience.Significant achievements:• Selected to attend inaugural 2009 APAC ‘Club Excellence’ program, Awarded 2009 APAC Finance Summit ‘Excellence in Finance’ award for leading price modeling.• Achieved a level of revenue forecasting accuracy consistently within the 2 most accurate eBay businesses within the Asia Pacific region. Typical variance less than 1.5%• Managed the development of the 2010 & 2011 revenue & operating metric budgets• Advised on the likely performance and observed final result of the 2009 price changes, as well as over 30 different promotional campaigns. Provided eBay side financial pre-analysis for 2 major proposed PayPal policy changes. Show less

Sydney, Australia

• Provided certified engineering support, for a range of KONE Elevator products.• Developed multivariate market pricing regression models, Coded Visual Basic and SQL routines to extract required sales and costs data. • Developed comprehensive specifying applications (including graphical user interface) for three separate products, enabling sales users to specify and tender deliverable, Australian Standard compliant elevator systems, conforming to the market pricing… Show more • Provided certified engineering support, for a range of KONE Elevator products.• Developed multivariate market pricing regression models, Coded Visual Basic and SQL routines to extract required sales and costs data. • Developed comprehensive specifying applications (including graphical user interface) for three separate products, enabling sales users to specify and tender deliverable, Australian Standard compliant elevator systems, conforming to the market pricing model.Significant achievements:• Developed KONE Australia’s first ever ‘client side’ specification-tendering-ordering program. This tool was rolled out to the National sales force and enabled sales users to significantly reduce the time required to develop tenders• Project managed the investigation and development of the supply chain process to achieve KONE Australia’s first ever importation of elevators from the KONE China Global Supply Unit. This project required the identification and solution of various difficulties including Australian Compliance, shipping and quarantine, Quality & marketability. Show less

Bachelor Of Engineering, Mechatronics

Activities and Societies: Dean's List of Academic Merit, Golden Key International Honor Society (Hons I)

Bachelor Of Commerce, Econometrics & Economics

Certified Practicing Accountant (Cpa)

Acma, Cgma, Management Accountancy