Nextt has, over the last 20 years, built a strong service that specialises in supporting people with a broad range of disabilities including autism, psycho-social disability, cognitive support needs, high physical support needs and Acquired Brain Injury. Nextt turns over about $100m per year with about 1,500 employees.

Key achievements: Led the finance function on the successful listing of Damstra on the Australian stock exchange.Managed the transition from multiple acquired financial systems to one ERP system (Sage).Led the finance function on a process to acquire a listed company, and the cost synergy process, saving $6.2m in annual costs (from $4m initial target)Successfully led and implemented four business acquisitions in one year (and nine in total at Damstra). • Multiple rounds of capital and financing raises. Implemented an automated performance review system and NPS score for employees and completely overhauled the Human Resources functionDesigned and implemented a Global Country Entry strategy, a 100-page risk assessment document to review before expanding into new jurisdictionsManaged our global growth and set up the operations in New Zealand, the Philippines, the UK and the USA.Led the project to successfully gain SOC2, ISO27001:2013 and ISO9001:2015 accreditation, and several recertifications.

As GM Finance for this very successful division of the Skilled Group, I am tasked to manage all aspects of financial management, commercial, risk and legal. I am very involved in the strategy of the business, which involves advice and investigation of expansion into new product offerings and mergers and acquisitions. I have, in my time, achieved:• Successfully led and implemented two acquisitions.• Managed major capital acquisitions, which included expansion into a new product capability• Delivered $5.6 million in cost savings, which was nearly double the Board target.• Business owner of the team that implemented new functionality in the reporting system, simultaneous to integration of the two accounting systems.

I am a hands-on financial officer and get involved in every aspect of the business, including detailed cash forecasting and cost and project management. Further, I managed all ASX and shareholder communication and all aspects of financial management including budgets, forecasting and monthly and yearly reporting. In my time, I have achieved the following major successes: - Successfully managed the sale of the Thomas & Coffey to the Skilled Group, including negotiating of the selling price and managing the due diligence process and the transition programme. - Early identification of a problematic project where my early structure changes avoided a possible $3 million loss. - Leading member of cost reduction committee that achieved annualised savings of $14m. - Careful working capital management led to average debtors’ days improving by 14.3 days and overdue debtors dropping by 14.5 percentage point. - Involved with banking facility renewals and succeeded in negotiating lower covenant levels. - Implemented reporting on overdue bonds and bank guarantees which assisted in significantly improved collection of these securities. - Improved reporting on idle labour which allowed issues to be identified and dealt with much earlier.

Acting as a consultant for the Group Finance Manager, I managed the following:• Assisted in preparing the business plan for 2013 - 2016 for the Group Finance Function. This included researching, analysing and documenting risks and understanding and documenting the vision of the department and the required objectives to achieving that;• Prepared several business standards and made recommendations for several more. I identified gaps in the current procedures and compiled draft procedures to address those gaps;• Analysed the financial performance of some subsidiaries and made recommendations for review where necessary;• Reviewed and made recommendations to revise the valuation of a company;• Wrote a procedure and comments on the definition of insolvency and how to identify and deal with identified cases of insolvent trading;• Understood and reported on the proposed internal statutory restructuring of a grouping of companies;• Compiled a quarterly review pack and wrote the template for that pack to use in future.

In this role, my aim was to manage the internal and external financial affairs of the group such that: • budgets are completed and met for the full group (including overhead budgets of $5 million); • banking and bonding facilities are maintained and improved; • external reporting is completed successfully, accurately and timely; • most importantly, to give regular feedback and advice to the operating side of the business to enable them to anticipate problems and improve our results through detailed project reviews and management accounts; and• working capital management to allow the company to maximise its available cash.The company failed due to it never being able to recover from poor decisions made between 2000 and 2007. I recognised the major challenges in the company and appointed the administrators and assisted the administration process to recover all debt so that all employees received 100% recovery of their entitlements.Other achievements are: - Reduced overhead costs by an annualised 60% - Reviewed the balance sheet for ineffective assets and freed up a significant amount of cash - Suggested and assisted in devising and implementing a five-point management strategy to ensure future business success by concentrating focus on the right areas. - Implemented a monthly reporting regime on staff retention statistics and estimated costs associated with this that forced a dialogue and subsequent investigation of staff retention challenges - I introduced monthly full-year forecasting and performance tracking against quarterly forecasting. - Successfully increased our available banking facilities by 60% during a very challenging period for the company - Revised monthly management reporting to increase the ease of use of the reports. This included the addition of charts and a one-page ‘dashboard’

As the CFO of this major listed construction company, my role objectives were to:• budgets are completed and met for the full group (including overhead budgets of $5 million); • The detailed review, advice on and analysis of the project reporting from the divisional finance managers, including checking the calculations of over- or underclaims, accruals and materials on site;• Provide commercial advice to the CEO and other members of the board to enable better, faster and more accurate decision making;• Provide strategic input into board decisions, including three-year forecasts, identification and consideration of new business opportunities and “go no-go” decisions;• Negotiate and ensure the best rates and facilities for all insurance, banking and bonding relationships.Some of my achievements were:• Promotion to be the youngest director in the company’s 55-year history.• Built a 10-year financing model and negotiated finance for a huge asset acquisition (ZAR600m) for a large mining contract• The arrangement of public-private partnerships, including negotiating the contracts and doing the financial modelling. • I successfully negotiated a further $80m (ZAR400m) in banking facilities which allowed the company to build a power station that they would have had to do as a joint venture otherwise.• Successfully managed the merger and subsequent integration with Murray & Roberts

(Note that I was appointed as group accountant in January 2003 and promoted to this position).Duties:Consolidation of group into one trial balance (108 trial balances including equity accounted associates, joint ventures and wholly- and partly owned subsidiaries) and the preparation of the subsequent financial statements.Standard duties such as monthly management accounts, budgeting, consolidations, dealing with auditors, taxation matters and the management of the shared accounting services centre and insurance renewal negotiations.Responsible for monthly cost reporting of own divisionManaging cash balances to maximise interest and negotiating with bank officials regarding rates and charges. Managing the full salaries and wages function for 4 000 employees with a department of only six people.

As part of the Woodmead-ZAR3billion project, I was responsible for identifying errant taxpayers, liaising with and auditing these taxpayers, raising assessments and then dealing with their objections and appeals. I gained exposure to all aspects of taxation in South Africa and was involved in several high profile cases. In September 2002, I was moved to the Randburg Corporate Tax Centre as team leader in charge of five auditors. I was responsible for managing an allocated number of large corporate taxpayers, which included keeping their administration up to date, auditing them and finalising large volumes of outstanding correspondence.

Working for the International Advisory Services division, I was responsible for the audits of a large client base. This included planning of the audit, budgeting, doing the actual audit, managing junior staff and finalising the audits. I gained experience in structured finance, various accounting methods and standards and taxation. I dealt extensively with numerous clients across various industries. Notable clients included Tata South Africa (motor vehicle manufacturers) and Johannes Möller (constructors of pneumatic conveyer systems).

Planning of audits, budgeting, doing the actual audit, managing junior staff and finalising the audits on a number of smaller companies and close corporations.Dealing with taxation matters on all of the above, plus taxation of several individuals and other organisations. This entailed calculating the tax, completing tax and VAT returns and dealing with SARS on related matters.Monthly accounting and cost reports for several clients.