Jonathan Sturdy Email & Phone Number

Adelaide, Australia

Dublin

• Responsible for the day to day financial management of the two largest Commercial areas• Established and maintained strong relationships with Commercial counterparts to ensure the early identification of risks and opportunities• Helped to drive company profitability by applying in-depth knowledge and experience to identify areas for cost cutting and improvement• Worked closely with the Accounts Receivable team to ensure debt and cash were managed to target• Through detailed analysis, reviewed business projects to determine profitability and financial viability (e.g. roll out of fuel save and move to every-day low prices)• Detailed ROCE calculations to support investment proposals• Giving advice, guidance and support on all financial matters to senior management• Ensuring key stakeholders were aware of the financial position and changes to forecasts at all times• Ensuring all commercial accounts were maintained to audit standard and acting as a liaison with both internal and external auditors• Managing, developing and motivating a team of five, across two countries• Setting team financial strategies and objectives, and monitoring performance versus goalsKey projects / achievements / successes • Helped to drive a year on year reduction in debt of over 40%• Overseeing the reduction in stock levels and the clearance of aged stock through promotional activity and clearance events• Played a key role in the restructure and redesign of the key Financial Controls surrounding the recognition of Commercial Income

Dublin

Budget & Planning• Responsibility for $4.5 billion Commercial Sales and Profit budget and quarterly/half yearly re-forecasts• Submission of Long Term Plan to group, factoring in complex variables such as foreign exchange rate fluctuations and competitor impacts• Balancing views of multiple stakeholders and achieving full buy in from Category Directors as well as the Commercial and Finance Director• Complete overhaul of budget process, with new budget model, increased automation, greater insight and new executive summary. Resulting in time savings across both Finance and Commercial teams, greater controls and clearer management summaryReporting• Re-design and re-structure of existing management information (in tandem with automation) lead to a time saving within the team of 40 hours per week• Developed and maintained a key dashboard report containing the top business KPIs and financial metrics with additional drill-down capability• Highlighting areas for improvement – identified and managed $4.5m per week transition of profit accruals from individual buyers to a central, finance managed process, significantly reducing risk as well as vastly increasing business insight• Overhaul of Balance Sheet reporting to increase financial controls and support additional backup for audit• Developed and maintained a system for producing self-serving reports for internal customers. This turned labour intensive, ad-hoc reporting into one-click customer initiated reports

Dublin

• Sole responsibility for analysis of the Ambient and GM Categories, including complex data sets and numerous data variables (including sales, costs, promotions, waste, stock, clearance and overall profitability for 100,000+ products)• Ensured the accurate weekly reporting of commercial profit• Key ‘go-to-person’ for the development of business-critical ad-hoc reports• Engagement with stakeholders to identify key business needs, maintaining close communication to ensure new reporting / analysis fully covered requirements• Extracting data using Business Intelligence Tools, as well as manual data extraction by writing, editing and reviewing SQL queries• Creation and maintenance of new Data Warehouse tables to improve reporting controls and speed up report delivery• Ensured all financial controls for the division were met and adhered to at all times• Monthly reconciliation of Commercial P&L and Balance Sheet accounts, including overseeing the preparation and posting of month end journals• Data manipulation and detailed investigation was responsible for identifying a complex IT issue which led to more than $4m of VAT (GST) savings / reclaims

Switzerland

• Reconciliation and payment of all suppliers, alongside regular bank reconciliations• Sole responsibility for all cash management (50+ staff)• Daily processing of invoices with corresponding nominal coding (SAGE)• Control and reconciliation of inventory• Preparing and reviewing weekly management accounts• Highlighting and reporting financial trends to the Central Finance Team

London, United Kingdom

• Responsible for the modelling, production & distribution of existing financial reports• Demonstrated the ability to identify areas for improvement by reviewing, redesigning and automating existing processes• Through liaison with senior members of the equities team, identified new client needs and identified new, unique solutions to address these needs• Direct reporting to senior members of the Merrill Lynch European Equities team including the Head of Equity Derivatives

Tanzania

• Quarterly budgets and forecasts with analysis and commentary on variances (Actual vs. Budget)• Managing local staff, including issuing staff wages and expenses• Managing all other logistical issues and ad-hoc tasks

London, United Kingdom

• Preparation of planning and strategy documents for audit engagements• Developing recommendations for areas of improvement, writing reports, documenting findings, and following up on recommendations to ensure action points are implemented• Re-design and re-structure of Work Programmes used for Audit Testing by reviewing, assessing and identifying the key business risks• Leading meetings with senior members of the business to establish existing controls and then subsequent meeting detailing audit recommendations to further mitigate risk• Managing and overseeing audit testing for teams of up to ten people, ensuring audit activities were carried out in a timely and efficient manner• Complete audit reports for dissemination to management and ensure proper follow up of outstanding items and recommendations• Programming of Excel to automate manual processes and speed up audit testing• Led training courses / presentations on ‘Audit Testing within the Branch Network’, ‘Audit Testing within Financial Crime’, ‘Advanced Excel’ and ‘Introduction to Visual Basics’• Conducting interviews and leading induction-training courses for new staff

London, United Kingdom

• Identification/calculation of fraudulent activity through analysis of fiscal and public records, asset identification and cash flow analysis• Created and implemented databases, systems and forms to maintain consistency in financial profiles through the forensic unit• Calculated forfeiture amounts and drafted civil forfeiture papers, which were used in the corporate conviction of crimes including money laundering and grand larceny