David Hedley Email & Phone Number

Warrington, United Kingdom

FD for operations outside Canada & US, I had full responsibility for reporting, control & compliance, tax, treasury & funding across the region, managing a finance team of approx. 90 people. Strong focus on growth, profitability, working capital and cash generation, including a rigorous risk management and governance process to evaluate major projects and decide go / no go. Led the migration of the UK to the Stantec Group Oracle platform.M&A was a core aspect of the role; I managed two UK and two Netherlands acquisitions, and one major UK divestment, covering due diligence, integration planning, tax optimisation, and defined benefit pensions.

Basel Area, Switzerland

Lead for finance & procurement of a global SAP ERP upgrade & replacement programme, with an initial focus on Brazil & LATAM. Definition of a standard global process & technology template, introducing automation, robotics, cognitive machine learning and analytics across all key areas of finance & procurement, pricing & O2C.

São Paulo, Brazil

Overall responsibility for finance for the Latin America region (US$4bn turnover). Major focus on compliance in Brazil, including all aspects of direct & indirect tax in a large and complex business.Successful implementation of new sales modalities and customer financing solutions to support a rapidly growing business (15% annual growth), through B2B & B2C channels. Led the implementation of a new ERP platform for the Seeds business across Latin America, transforming a manual, spreadsheet business to highly automated, compliant ways of working.

Basel, Switzerland

Responsible for the design and implementation of Syngenta’s global Business Services organisation, a cross functional shared services organisation focused on global process standardisation, high quality services and financial benefits of over $100m. Delivery has included the migration of transactional processing and financial reporting to a global service centre, establishment of standard finance processes and controls, and implementation of global governance and continuous assurance capability.

Alderley Edge / London

Responsible for all aspects of group financial and management reporting. Restructured the group financial reporting function to create Group Reporting Services. Materially improved the data quality of group financial analysis, delivering transparency over business performance and movements in the group financial statements. Achieved clean Group audit reports for 2004 – 2006 year ends, and full Sarbanes-Oxley compliance at 2006 year end. Developed strong links with investor relations in order to provide a strong and consistent message to investors aligned with quarterly group reporting. Managed the portfolio of group finance IS applications.

Hong Kong / Singapore

Responsible for all aspects of finance management across Asia Pacific, covering 14 countries and 120 Finance professionals. Reporting to the Head of Asia Pacific. Achievements included: driving significant top line growth ($0.7bn to $1bn) and profit; shaping successful business restructuring in China, India and Australia; and managing regional SAP, Finance outsourcing and SOX implementations

Guildford / Basel

Established and managed Syngenta’s external reporting function and global consolidation process (180 subsidiaries), reporting on four stock exchanges (NYSE, London, Zurich and Stockholm). Key member of the 20/F and Annual Report editorial team, establishing working links between Group Finance and Legal functions. Implemented Hyperion, and established IFRS training capability for all Syngenta finance staff.

Tokyo, Japan

Responsible for finance and business development. Achievements included: establishment of downstream distribution, covering all aspects of commercial, logistics, finance and IT; successful negotiation implementation of a biotechnology joint venture with Japan Tobacco.

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), English Language & Literature And French, 2:1

Activities and Societies: Hockey, Drama, Debating Society

Education record