James' responsibilities as Commercial Controller include the following:- Provision of accurate analysis, data, and commentary to support & direct the Sales team’s key commercial decision making, including negotiation of terms, pricing, and promotional plans; - Acting as business partner with the broad commercial teams to ensure complete understanding of the P&L and its key drivers; - Provision of proactive analysis and interpretation of customer / product/ brand profitability and make recommendations for improvement of the financial position; - Assisting to identify opportunities for profit growth and to provide key input into 3 year strategic plan; - Conveying headline data to target audience with intention of provoking discussion, highlighting areas of concern, or understanding plans for resolution; - Defining, creating and maintaining new finance processes and procedures for the National Accounts team; - Monitoring and analysing promotional spends vs budget, determining optimum approach and variance by brand/customer; - To provide analyse on the impact & effectiveness of promotional strategy by brand/customer and identifying opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of same, and overall return on investment; and - Providing specific financial support for the National Account team throughout annual trade negotiations (including JBPs, LTA/ Discount negotiations etc.).

James' main responsibilities with the NI Chamber included the following:• Maintenance of the Chamber’s sales ledger and purchase ledger;• Development and implementation of credit control procedures;• Preparation of VAT returns and submission to HMRC;• Calculation and processing of salaries, pensions and benefits;• Production of monthly management accounts pack and financial information for presentation to the Chief Executive and Board of Directors including variance analysis against budget and prior year;• Preparation of monthly profit & loss account and balance sheet;• Production of year end accounts for statutory audit purposes;• Liaising with auditors and bank as required;• The preparation, monitoring and communication of financial budgets; • Supporting the chief executive and directors in business development issues and the implementation of ISO standard processes; and• Development and monitoring of internal accounting controls.

James was a Management Accountant within the Education team at Northgate Managed Services. Northgate Managed Services provides cloud based and infrastructure IT services to public, private and third sector organisations and specialist IT managed services in the education, government, utilities and charities sectors.In James' role he produced the monthly accounts within the GB education business unit and as part of this he had to understand, monitor and forecast across a number of long term contract models. He prepared monthly P&L accounts for all contracts using appropriate revenue recognition treatment, as well as managing and monitoring the balance sheet for the business. To assist in management reviews and decision making James prepared value-adding business variance reports to budget, as well as supporting the operations teams regarding financial information and project inputs.James continuously strove to improve reporting and business insight around the education business and promoted business excellence and process improvement around month end close. Each month he provided outputs to P&L owners and the education leadership team around balance sheet and specific cost areas to drive cost savings and ensure accurate forecasting. During mid-month he supported the operational team with monthly reports including KPIs, salary reports, training and project expenditure.As part of his role James produced and maintained detailed excel based financial models and worked with SAP business management software on a daily basis.

James joined BDO in April 2009 following completion of his training contract with PwC.BDO Northern Ireland Forensics positioned itself as one of the key players in this field of expertise. While part of this team James assisted in cases involving: • business valuations; • commercial and personal dispute resolution; • commercial and personal litigation; • loss of profit calculations; • professional negligence; and • contractual disputes. This range of complex and sometimes sensitive cases required James to work on a daily basis with figures within financial statements, management accounts, financial projections and commercial contracts.

Having completed three years of training with the audit department in PwC, James moved to their forensics department as part of the specialised Intellectual Property Management team. During this six month period James worked for PwC’s largest Forensics client conducting Forensic audits to ensure partners were conducting business in line with their respective agreements. James was part of this team travelling across Europe to lead these forensic audits and report back to the cleint.These audits required an understanding of complex IT contracts and the ability to analyse large quantities of data using Microsoft Excel.

James joined PwC’s audit team as a trainee is October 2005. During these three years his areas of expertise included financial audits of UK based companies including overseas branches, large companies and owner managed businesses; financial audits of public bodies; internal audits of UK based companies; Sarbanes Oxley documentation; and internal control mapping, testing and review.James responsibilities included:• preparation of accounts from client financial systems involving the posting of corrective and accounting journals;• preparation of final statutory accounts for companies, consolidation of group companies and final proof reading of accounts before publication;• training and supervision of junior members of staff and review of their work;• documenting operating systems procedures, validating controls within business processes and making an assessment of these and their impact on the planned audit approach;• completing both audit and accounts preparation assignments with minimal supervision, meeting deadlines and being first point of contact for manager/client;• establishing and developing strong client relationships at all levels;• performance of internal audit assignments within the public sector;• preparation of reports for client management on financial and operating procedures, including the identification of weaknesses and proposing recommendations for improvement;• presentation of audit findings to both PwC managers, partners and client staff; and• keeping up to date with the latest accounting and auditing developments including adjustments regarding adoption of IFRS and new accounting standards, putting such knowledge into practice on a day to day basis.James was fortunate to have the experience of working with some of the largest companies in Northern Ireland. These companies gave him the opportunity to work with IFRS reporting groups and foreign currency consolidation.