Dean Howe, Cpa, Mba Email and Phone Number

• DC Howe & Company, CPA, LLC is a Small Accounting and Business Consulting Practice focusing on the financial needs of Individuals and Small Business Owners.• Proactive Tax Planning strategies to identify missed opportunities that cost individuals and small business owners thousands of dollars in taxes.• Integrated Tax and Financial services through Eight Wealth Management Issues that affects everyone at some stage of life.• One-stop shop for small business owners with a variety of packages that offers all their Accounting, Tax, Payroll and Virtual CFO services.• Offers strategic guidance to small business clients in managing their business, including Cash flows analysis and forecasting, performing Return on Investment (ROI) Analysis on new investments and general business consulting to help them grow their businesses and reduce their tax liabilities.• Utilizes State-of-the-art Cloud-Base technologies allowing us to work collaboratively with our clients regardless of location and allowing 24-hour access to financial information.

• Developed and maintained long-term financial planning model used in supporting the guidance to Wall Street, debt refinancing and future impacts of strategic business decisions.• The primary liaison between finance and the senior leadership team of the Real Estate, Store Operations, Store Designs and Construction teams.• Analyzed prospective new store investments for accuracy and completeness and reevaluated assumptions used to make future investment decisions.• Evaluated store renewals and relocations opportunities identified by the Real Estate team for incremental sales and profit, including complex analysis to properly evaluate incremental cash flows and ROI.• Maintained complex excel based investment model for accuracy, relevance and completeness of all assumptions used to drive ROI analysis. Established guidelines for ROI hurdles on future investments.• Analyzed stores performance for incremental sales and profit vs the underwriting model assumptions.• Developed daily, weekly and monthly sales plan for new stores and assisted in the preparation of annual expense budget.

• Internal Consultant position created by CFO to support Business leaders with finance related matters.• Provided support on the analysis of monthly operating results against plan and explanation of variances.• Assisted with the gathering of information and the preparation of annual operating expenses and capital budgets.• Performed Return on Investment (ROI) analysis on proposed capital projects to determine the benefits against costs.• Prepared analytics for senior management to identify cost savings opportunities as part of the company’s profit improvement initiative.• Reviewed and enhanced methodology of accrual and account reconciliation to ensure accuracy of financial data.

• Prepared and analyzed Consolidated Statement of Income, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statements.• Partnered in the execution of monthly, quarterly and year-end cash flow and working capital initiatives.• Assisted in the preparation of SEC filings, including quarterly 10Q and annual 10K reports.• Organized, reviewed and distributed monthly operating review package which included key financial and non-financial metrics for Senior Management and Board of Directors discussion.• Reviewed and analyzed monthly SGA expenses and CAPEX, discussed variances to plan with senior management.• Developed and reviewed store P&L statements to assist management in strategic decision making.• Managed and tracked company’s $1.5 billion debt and coordinated with the treasury department to ensure ratios are in compliance with the covenants set forth by lending institutions.• Finance lead on the implementation of Cognos BI and Controller Consolidation reporting systems resulting in increased efficiency of the financial close and reporting processes.

• Evaluated financial results and discussed compliance variance explanations with senior management.• Responsible for the management and development of three staff accountants with full responsibility of the P&L analysis, Balance Sheet and Month-end closings for the Nine West Footwear Corporate and International Divisions.• Reviewed the work of staff to ensure proper compliance with Best Practices and Sarbanes Oxley procedures and ensured internal documentation procedures were met and followed.• Partnered with various department heads providing financial information to assist with forecasts and budgets.• Collaborated with the Financial Planning and Analysis team as part of the monthly close and reporting of results.• Reconciled independently, $50M plus per month Inventory Clearing Account (AP) converting/migrating all documentation from MS Excel to a cutting-edge MS Access database application.• Traveled to Boston and orchestrated the implementation of new and improved procedures which facilitated newly acquired Maxwell Shoe Company’s ability to reduced their End of Month Close from 20 to 4 days.• Selected as part of a team to devise a strategy over a 12-month period to save the company $25 million annually.