With Brexit and the Finance Transformation Programme in full swing, there was the need to bring more people to support the business from a Finance perspective, which allowed me to become Head of FP&A in Europe, running a team of 4 resources to help deliver both of those programmes successfully.Brexit means the Europe business, with a new Insurance Carrier established in Luxembourg, has increased reporting and regulatory needs that go in line with that, while the Finance Transformation… Show more With Brexit and the Finance Transformation Programme in full swing, there was the need to bring more people to support the business from a Finance perspective, which allowed me to become Head of FP&A in Europe, running a team of 4 resources to help deliver both of those programmes successfully.Brexit means the Europe business, with a new Insurance Carrier established in Luxembourg, has increased reporting and regulatory needs that go in line with that, while the Finance Transformation Programme is changing the way we operate in Hiscox on all areas related with Finance (Accounting, Reserving, Reinsurance, Reporting, Planning, etc).This new role brings new challenges, from managing several people with different profiles and motivational challenges, as well as invest in their training on Insurance accounting, to be able to fulfil all the deliverables of both programmes, while at the same time continuing to support all the BAU tasks under our team’s ownership. Show less

With an increase in responsibilities assigned to the Planning team, both coming from an increased demand on planning outputs (e.g. business cases, 5-year flightplan, etc.), as well as the need to provide better insight into the business to the several stakeholders that the Europe Finance team has, the team welcomed a new analyst, with me becoming Manager and being responsible for the development and motivation of this new resource.For this reason, I had the need to develop a new set of… Show more With an increase in responsibilities assigned to the Planning team, both coming from an increased demand on planning outputs (e.g. business cases, 5-year flightplan, etc.), as well as the need to provide better insight into the business to the several stakeholders that the Europe Finance team has, the team welcomed a new analyst, with me becoming Manager and being responsible for the development and motivation of this new resource.For this reason, I had the need to develop a new set of skills around people management and delegation of tasks, also developing a vision for the team, and getting engagement of the new team member on that vision.This year also saw the beginning of the Brexit programme, in which I was significantly involved in the preparation and development of the several scenarios for the transfer of business to a European Legal Entity from a financial point of view, which place me in contact with several aspects of the business I was only marginal aware of (Part VII transfers, Reinsurance arrangements, Solvency II, etc.).Last but not least, in 2017 we felt the full impact of changes in Hiscox top management (that happened late 2016), with a new Managing Director running the European business, with significant impacts across the organisation and its operating model, as well as a new Group CFO, which also brought about significant changes to the way Finance operates, namely starting a Finance restructure initiative that would elevate our function within Hiscox at several levels, with the goal of becoming a top-quartile function in the Financial Services area. Show less

With a new CFO for UK&Europe, a new restructure took place where I started to report directly to the European Head of Finance, which allowed me to be more connected both to the rest of the European Finance team, as well as the European business.This insight gave me the opportunity to increase my knowledge of several areas I was already engaged with, which allowed me to better understand their needs and put me in a position to more effectively help them.

After an internal restructure, where the Finance teams of UK & Europe merged into one, my role became more closely tied to Business Planning, specifically owning the European business planning process, where my main tasks are:- Continue to establish a better relationship with Senior Management of European business with the end result of achieving a more robust budget and forecast and allow for a better follow-up during the year- Build a 5-year flightplan for Europe to allow the… Show more After an internal restructure, where the Finance teams of UK & Europe merged into one, my role became more closely tied to Business Planning, specifically owning the European business planning process, where my main tasks are:- Continue to establish a better relationship with Senior Management of European business with the end result of achieving a more robust budget and forecast and allow for a better follow-up during the year- Build a 5-year flightplan for Europe to allow the Management team to better understand the main challenges in each area that would allow them to fulfill their vision for the BusinessWith a new Head of Finance for Europe, I also became heavily involved in providing support to her, namely:- Preparing comments on the accounts, explaining major variances and providing insight regarding performance vs plan- Preparing decks with financial information for different audiences, e.g. European Management Team, Hiscox Group Management Team, European Finance Team, etc.In both these capacities, I've become more involved in the European business and have created relationships with several different teams throughout the business, e.g. Underwriting, Operations, Human Resources, Management Information , etc. Show less

Through the work in my previous role I was offered the opportunity to step up and become a Management Accountant for Europe, where my responsibilities were:- Understand the workings of an Insurance Carrier and how it translated into the Management Accounts- Use the knowledge gained to improve on the processes associated with both the current European business reporting as well as Business Planning (Budget and Forecast) for Europe- Establish a relationship with the main… Show more Through the work in my previous role I was offered the opportunity to step up and become a Management Accountant for Europe, where my responsibilities were:- Understand the workings of an Insurance Carrier and how it translated into the Management Accounts- Use the knowledge gained to improve on the processes associated with both the current European business reporting as well as Business Planning (Budget and Forecast) for Europe- Establish a relationship with the main stakeholders of European business in order to both proactively understand the european business as well as provide them with tools that would help them improve their business and plan better for the futureOne of the major outputs of this role was the build of a new Business Planning model (both for Budget and Forecast) which allowed for a more streamlined process and resulted in a better output as interactions with stakeholders happened quicker and with better results. Show less

- Prepare Management Accounts- Prepare Board Reports and Statutory Accounts- Reconcile all Balance Sheet accounts except Cash & Banks (done centrally by Treasury), namely Debtors, Creditors and Intercompany- Investigate any major variances in BS or P&L accounts- Book all Premium and related Commissions plus Taxes (e.g. IPT)- Report to Group for consolidation purposes (answering any queries)Regarding the tasks above I managed to improve the processes so that it would… Show more - Prepare Management Accounts- Prepare Board Reports and Statutory Accounts- Reconcile all Balance Sheet accounts except Cash & Banks (done centrally by Treasury), namely Debtors, Creditors and Intercompany- Investigate any major variances in BS or P&L accounts- Book all Premium and related Commissions plus Taxes (e.g. IPT)- Report to Group for consolidation purposes (answering any queries)Regarding the tasks above I managed to improve the processes so that it would be simpler and quicker to run the steps during month-end, freeing up time for me to investigate issues and eventually pick-up other tasks, allowing me to progress within the company.Outside my role above, I also performed the following:- Finance contact in project team that setup a branch in Ireland for HUL (UK Agency)- Build a Budget model for HUL- Setup the reporting of HUL, HEUL (European Agency) & HIC (Insurance carrier) into Cognos Controller (new reporting system for Group consolidation)- FSA reporting (RMAR) for HUL, HEUL & HIC- Prepare the HIC accounts for European branches- Setup templates for HEUL reporting and analysis Show less