Michael Nicol Email & Phone Number

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

I am tasked with enhancing the Pacific Banking division’s deal flow, decision and hindsight review processes.Key Responsibilities• Designing, building and implementing an Excel-based solution using VBA to automate processes within the Pacific Banking division’s Credit arm.• Management of several projects through engagement of key stakeholders via mediums including WebEx and Teams during COVID-19 restrictions.• Management and implementation of the roadmap towards establishment of Credit Risk Control function for Pacific.Key Achievements• I developed Westpac Pacific's first ever end-to-end Credit Risk Workflow Tool which has streamlined a significant amount of manual work. Additionally, I ensured adequate training and smooth transition was provided to the business when rolling out the Workflow Tool.• Streamlined and automated the Fiji Regulatory Reports to be produced in less than half a day, where previously the labour-intensive process required 10 working days.• Developed monthly dashboards for trend analysis for data back to 2010 with automated graphical representations. Dashboards were created for detailed analysis on the Bank's loan segments in order to assist in deep dive analysis on specific loan sectors to which Westpac Fiji has exposure. I created a similar dashboarding tool for comparing Westpac to industry peers.• Streamlined and automated monthly source reports and dashboards for the Pacific Risk Analytics Team utilised for internal distribution and provision of adhoc reports for key stakeholders.• Constructed data input and recall interfaces; automated document production and conversion to PDF; automated dynamic reporting and email notifications for both Outlook and Lotus Notes users; and dashboards and user guides. This ensured that the interfaces only allowed users to submit data where authorised to do so to satisfy the organisation’s internal control requirements.

London, England, United Kingdom

Due to my successful performance, I progressed through the company and was the recipient of numerous awards and received financial recognition for my efforts. As Institutional Proposition Specialist, my autonomous role spanned multiple functions including operations, legal and portfolio management.Responsibilities• Drafting and updating investment management agreements, quotations and regulatory cost disclosures.• Engaging with external parties including fund managers, investment consultants, actuaries, administrators, auditors, fiduciary research firms and trustees to answer technical and non-technical queries relating to the organisation’s fiduciary management offering.• Management of pricing, fee negotiations and development of business cases for a range of propositions.• Identifying and mitigating high risk/manually intensive processes through the development of automated solutions resulting in productivity enhancements including the use of Excel VBA coding language.Key Achievements• Assisted in the origination, facilitation and implementation of new investment propositions within the fiduciary management offering, such as Alternatives and Liability Driven Investments which resulted in additional revenue streams to the value of tens of thousands of pounds annually.• Successfully provided critical management information to senior management on the progress of the JLT fiduciary business to assist in making business decisions.• Constructed and maintained spreadsheets and data relating to the JLT fiduciary management business to assist Executive Level team members with business reporting.• Ensured new staff were trained on and adhered to key operational processes and procedures.

London, England, United Kingdom

This role primarily focused on portfolio construction for fiduciary management clients along with additional commercial activities.Responsibilities• Construction and maintenance of multi-asset portfolios for institutional fiduciary management clients.• Building and maintaining relationships with external parties including fund managers, investment consultants and the investment platform provider of choice.• Attendance of manager research meetings and ratings committee meetings.Key Achievements• Drafted external communications such as client letters and press releases in line with the organisation’s communications guidelines.• Produced bespoke quotations for clients in conjunction with the investment consultant to grow the business in line with organisational goals.• Redesigned and rebuilt the fiduciary management new business function with end-to-end automation (pre-populating quotations, contracts, GDPR addendums, MiFID cost disclosures and management information) significantly reducing staff workload.• Constructed a cashflow generation spreadsheet for the Administration department which automated manual inputs for cashflow requests, reducing the error rate from one in every four instructions to zero.• Built an automated cashflow and restructures template for the portfolio management team including transaction cost estimator.

London, United Kingdom

This role was dedicated to supporting the investment consultants in servicing Pension Scheme clients in the traditional investment consulting business.Responsibilities• Management of due diligence and research report submissions on third-party fund managers.• Provision of assistance to the Investment Consultants with the delivery of strategy modelling for clients.Key Achievements• Produced business critical quarterly and adhoc investment performance reports and presentations for clients to satisfy their regulatory requirements.• Presented tailored investment performance and strategy reports at Trustee meetings.• Arranged and attended third party manager selection meetings for and on behalf of clients.

London, England, United Kingdom

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Internship and university placement from 2008–2010.

Bachelor Of Business, Finance

Education record