Dirk Van Der Merwe Email & Phone Number

London, Gb

London, Gb

London, England, United Kingdom

London, England, United Kingdom

Brought in at the early stages of creating the Finance department to prepare for scaling – reporting directly to the CFO, the Finance department grew from 5 to 20+ in less than a year. Led GSR’s build out of a legal entity control function, developing the team to deliver timely and accurate internal and external financial information. A key contributor in designing and implementing processes and a control framework to ensure a robust internal control environment. Ownership of reporting processes and Group Reporting.

London, United Kingdom

Serving as strategic adviser and counsel to the Investment Bank & UK CFO, assuming the day-to-day responsibilities for tasks and projects. Creating and maintaining cross-departmental relationships to enable leadership success.

Hong Kong

- Managed the Financial Accounting and Regulatory Reporting teams.- Full ownership of month end close and Group Reporting of Balance Sheet;- Preparation of Annual Financial Statements of subsidiaries;- Reviewed all Regulatory Returns (18 in total) before submission to the HKMA;- Ensured all deadlines were met with a high level of accuracy;- Represented the Finance department at committee meetings;- Worked closely with teams outside of Finance to collaborate on BAU and ad hoc issues;- Managed relationships with external parties such as Auditors, Tax Advisors, Regulators, Training providers and Consultants;- Evaluated new IFRS, Regulatory, Tax and Legal requirements to determine changes that need to be implemented;- Assessed and signed off on new product approval requests, providing feedback on Finance’s requirements;- Participated in local and group change projects;- Reviewed all processes to ensure strong efficient controls throughout;- Led the teams by example and assisted with their personal development;- Involved in various D&I and CSR initiatives.

London, United Kingdom

Part of the project team to design and deliver the Daily Balance Sheet (DBS) process. Worked closely with consultants and offshore teams to define and document key controls for each stage in the DBS validation process and handshakes between teams. Defined business requirements on analytical review and commentary process, and creation of a control dashboard to track the sign-off from each process owner. This enabled the Financial Controlling team to monitor the overall DBS progress and sign-off status with a fully validated DBS delivered by close of business each day.

London, United Kingdom

- Full ownership of balance sheet for Group Reporting and Management Committee approval;- Managed the month end close process for the Financial Reporting department;- Provided commentary to senior management for material BS moves highlighting key drivers;- Prepared and submitted forms to Group Reporting for quarterly disclosure purposes under JGAAP;- Worked closely with the Tokyo team to finalise quarterly results, travelling to Japan to liaise directly and obtain final sign-off;- Part of the core team responsible for producing the Financial Statements;- Liaised with internal and external audit teams to finalise audits;- Involved in development projects, such as General Ledger automation;- Set up and managed a reconciliation process between the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) liquidity reporting requirement and financial results;- Assisted with ad-hoc analysis/requests to assess the potential impact of new regulations, both internal and external requirements;- Managed a team of 2 qualified accountants.

London, United Kingdom

- Prepared the multi-GAAP reporting for the FI and Equities Structured Derivative and Note Issuance Programmes;- Responsible for assessing the accounting treatment of new Special Purpose Entity and complex Structured Product trades, obtaining Accounting Policy approval and preparing the multi-GAAP reporting for these structures.

London, United Kingdom

Took full responsibility for two regulated JP Morgan legal entities. I managed the financial reporting process to report internally and externally on the results of the entities.

London, United Kingdom

Part of a project team to convert and onboard clients’ unit trust funds and OEICs to State Street’s systems.

Johannesburg Area, South Africa

I spent my earlier career completing my training contract in South Africa and held the position of accountant in charge on a wide variety of large corporate clients (industries covered: Mining, Manufacturing, FMCG, IT & Agriculture). I was responsible for conducting statutory audits, resolving audit issues identified, improving audit documentation and processes and nurturing junior talent.I consistently attained an in-house rating of “exceeding expectations” during my training contract. After qualifying I travelled to Miami/Fort Lauderdale on an international secondment, where I focused on large Manufacturing and Utilities corporate clients.

B.Com (Hons), Accountancy

Education record