Chris Smith Email & Phone Number

Responsible for setting commercial growth plans and tracking performance against these plans, identifying and prioritising course correction activity where necessary in collaboration with sales, marketing and partnership functions.

Business partnering Vodafone Business' Digital Sales Senior Leadership teamLeading month end and forecasting for Revenue, TCV, opex and capexManaging the recharge process, interlocking with markets during forecasting cyclesSupporting strategic expansion plans; writing business cases and managing financial risks and opportunitiesAlso Business Partnering Vodafone Business' Big Data and Advanced Analytics team, and the Strategy team.

Newbury

Sovereign is a social and commercial landlord and property developer with a turnover of c£375m and c1,800 employees. Sovereign underwent a significant merger with Spectrum Housing Group in November 2016. Responsible for all financial planning & analysis and financial transformation activity during a period of significant growth and change.Financial Reporting• Transformed Sovereign’s monthly management accounts; capturing requirements of key stakeholders, integrating operational performance data with the financials, tracking progress against strategic priorities, automating reports where possible, taking ownership of all narrative to ensure clarity and consistency of information for Board and Executive.• Owned value for money reporting, which involved measuring the performance of assets against strategic priorities to identify opportunities to increase value for the customer and business.• Pioneered the use of rolling forecasting across Sovereign; writing business case, facilitating workshops with key stakeholders to get input and buy-in, designing and communicating new process, organising testing and training users.Financial Transformation• Designed and implemented a five year cross-functional business plan to drive strategic growth and cost saving objectives following significant regulatory changes. Monitored and reviewed the plan, including monthly updates at operational leadership meetings and to Board via a performance report. • Led integration of two Finance departments during merger, ensuring all customer touch points with Finance were seamless at point of merger, aligning and improving all processes, migrating onto a single Finance system, generating significant staff savings post-merger.Line management responsibility for a Senior Reporting Accountant, Finance Projects Officer and a Graduate during this period.

Newbury

Working with senior specialists to set, implement and monitor business strategy.• Led a strategic research programme to evaluate risks, challenge product pricing and assess potential opportunities as part of the 2014 strategic review. Fully engaged with the business and sector experts; research findings were documented with recommendations and presented across the business. • Conducted comprehensive PESTLE and SWOT analysis, interviewing key senior internal and external stakeholders and facilitated workshop at Senior Leadership Group meeting to stimulate debate and ideas. • Kept abreast of rapidly changing sector developments and researched new thinking across housing, sharing learning with senior leaders via regular “State of the Nation” presentations.Line management of a Statistician.

Newbury

• Risk analysis of Welfare reforms:- designing a financial model, engaging with key stakeholders to formulate assumptions and sensitivities to assess the financial impact to Sovereign and plan appropriate mitigation activity.- carrying out extensive customer insight analysis to identify at risk households in order to target communications and tailor support, reducing income loss at point of policy change.• Facilitated workshops to engage internal and external stakeholders in responses to Government consultations, ensuring consensus on emotive issues.• Carried out gap analysis to improve the evidence base on which decisions were made. Developed a new socio-economic data set to provide context to financial decisions.

Swindon, United Kingdom

• Translated strategic priorities into data requirements, working with developers and business managers to devise new reports focusing on existing customer retention in a time of mortgage market uncertainty post credit crunch.• Analysed market and internal trends to identify opportunities and risks, working with the New Product team to assess potential initiatives and determine price points for different products.

London, United Kingdom

Managed a team of research analysts to supporting audit and inspection activity across London.• Engaging with colleagues to understand the particular information requirements of each audit or inspection.• Analysing performance information to identify issues for inspection teams to investigate.• Ensured auditors and inspectors were fully briefed on all relevant policy and regulatory developments in the region, specialising as the research lead for Economic Development.

London, United Kingdom

• Carried out extensive desk based research to support performance work, sourcing and managing significant quantitative data sets, using statistical analysis to support performance assessments.• Undertaking primary quantitative and qualitative research, including designing surveys, running focus groups and carrying our field research.

Short term contract monitoring and reporting on performance to drive service improvements, specifically looking the cost and turnaround times of re-letting empty properties.

Short term contract providing economic analysis for a Best Value Review of Passenger Transport.

Ad hoc research and analysis, including managing customer satisfaction surveys using SNAP. Responsible for regulatory data returns and sector benchmarking analysis.

Contributed to the measurement and analysis stages of process improvement projects using the Six Sigma Methodology; facilitating workshops, designing reports in Business Objects and designing process maps using Visio.

2:1, Business Economics

Certificate In Business Accountancy