James Euesden Email & Phone Number

York, England, United Kingdom

York, United Kingdom

From Sep 18 – July 20 I was responsible for the financial oversight of three programmes that ensured the UK’s agricultural and fisheries sectors were prepared for the country’s departure from the European Union. The three programmes incorporated 20 projects and had a total annual budget of £65 million.Since July 2020 I have been responsible for providing financial oversight for Natural England’s submission to the annual spending review, reporting on overall programme staff and capital expenditure throughout Natural England. Key achievements• Constructed business plans that outlined how fisheries expenditure would be impacted by the manner and timing of the UK’s departure from the EU. Identified how £5m of additional activity could be funded through a combination of extra funding from HM Treasury and £2m of savings from elsewhere in the programme. This enabled the projects to efficiently pivot to viable plans as negotiations progressed.• Persuaded the Trade director to commit to a revised forecast which identified £2m of savings that could be made whilst still meeting all the programme’s objectives. The savings could then be used to fund projected overspends in other parts of DEFRA. • Worked with scientists and analysts within DEFRA to put together a successful business case that advocated the case for the government to commit £100m to the new Copernicus system after the UK has left the EU.• Worked with budget holders, procurement and the business support team to ensure that all costs and revenue were being correctly classified and captured within the accounts to comply with National Audit Office guidelines. • Ensured that emerging risks and opportunities were reported to the department’s senior management team, which enabled them to assess the overall financial position of the EU Exit Portfolio

Knaresborough, Uk

Science Group is a listed company with an annual turnover of £50m. I was responsible for integrating and developing the financial and management reporting for TSG Europe, a recently acquired private multinational scientific consultancy company with an £8m turnover.Key achievements• Introduced a new monthly financial reporting process that adhered to reporting standards required of a listed company, including reconciled inter-company balances, deferral of relevant income and bringing forward reporting deadlines forward by 5 days.• Created a new budget and management accounting model based on sales and staff resources being collectively managed across all European offices. This allowed the management team to assess the overall financial position of the company and eliminate local bottlenecks.

York, United Kingdom

As the inaugural financial controller at an agricultural machinery manufacturer I was responsible for establishing financial controls, systems and reporting following a takeover by private investors. The company had an annual turnover of £5 million, employed 40 people and was in a turnaround situation.-Produced a custom SAGE report which split the order book into promised and projected delivery dates. Presenting this report to functional managers on a weekly basis enabled the company to increase annual turnover by 30%-Produced a pricing model for parts and machines based on production costs and commercially acceptable profit margins. This enabled Sumo to increase annual gross profit by 5% whilst sales increased.-Conducted a full review of all overheads costs as part of a zero-based budgeting process. Enforcement of budgetary controls resulted in a £1 million year-on-year improvement in net profit-Led a project to introduce a new stock system that eliminated the need for monthly stock checks and increased the accuracy of the financial accounts-Devised internal audits that had to be completed each month before any of the ledgers were closed down. Implementation of the audits enabled me to increase the accuracy and timeliness of the monthly accounts.-Presented a strategy presentation to the company board which outlined the impact on profitability and cash flow of building inventory stock through the winter. This secured the company an additional investment of £1 million.-Reduced processing time and costs within the finance function by emailing documents that had previously been posted, and introducing a credit card machine to take payments from small customers who had previously had credit accounts-Wrote custom SAGE reports that enabled sales and inventory information to be viewed by the management team in real time through Microsoft BI

Oxford, United Kingdom

I was responsible for the financial planning for three different profit centres with a combined turnover of £15 million and 150 employees.-Identified that a poorly performing contract should become profitable if transferred to a different part of the business. Arranged meetings between managers from the different units in order to implement this change-Identified that it was neither legally or commercially necessary for Unipart to pay £10k worth of debit notes issued to us by a client, and led a successful negotiation to have them cancelled-Improved financial controls when the office maintenance contract was taken in-house by eliminating retrospective purchase orders, introducing monthly financial reporting and negotiating service contracts directly with suppliers. This led to a £47k annual saving in the first year.-I spent three days process mapping each team working on the ULM contract, whilst identifying cost drivers. This enabled me to construct a challenging flex budget that reflected the realities of the operation.-I redesigned the weekly and monthly reporting packs for ULM to align operational and financial metrics within a single report. The increased financial awareness led to a £180k improvement in variance to the flex budget compared to the previous year.-Introduced data validation and worksheet protection into the excel documents used by team leaders to make them easier to use and ensure they were compatible with my financial reports-Calculated the pallet storage costs for a new business bid by evaluating the likely space utilised and impact on utility costs. -Produced and presented a weekly residual costs report to the senior management team after a £5 million customer went into administration. Within three months the company had filled the 200k sq ft of warehouse space vacated by the contract, and redeployed all of the 90 colleagues who did not wish to take voluntary redundancy.

Sevenoaks, Kent

I was responsible for a sales ledger which generated an annual turnover of £20 million from 1000 live customers. Key achievements-Debtor days reduced from 41 to 37 days.-Replaced a manual cash reconciliation process with an excel document. This saved an hour a day and reduced discrepancies.

Chartered Management Accountant

Bachelor Of Science (Bsc), Economics And Politics, 2:1

Activities and Societies: Bristol Debating Union

A-Levels, Politics (A), English (A), Maths (C), General Studies (A)