Michael Sloan Email & Phone Number

Gb

At Whyte & Mackay I lead the Finance/IS/Legal function of 46 and sit on the Executive Committee. This role is wide ranging as our business is very diverse; at the same point in time we can be selling a bottle of Whyte & Mackay for £15 in your local supermarket as well as a bottle of Dalmore for £160,000 in an airport in Asia and so this really brings a great richness of challenges and experiences. We have been under the current owners since October 2014 and they are very supportive of our plan and to building for long term success which is very important for a whisky company. Generally, I am responsible for managing and maximising the assets of the business and, collectively with the other members of the Executive, for delivering on the strategic imperatives of the business in a sustainable manner.

AG Barr is a business known for its main brand, Irn-Bru, and its excellent marketing but it also has a large portfolio of other drinks brands (Barr, Strathmore, Rockstar as examples) mainly sold in the UK. As part of the Management Committee I was responsible for Commercial Finance which effectively covered all Marketing investment and all deals and promotions in place with retailers. Given the high volume, heavily discount nature of soft drinks this role required regular contact with the commercial function which was both interesting and challenging in equal measure.

Tennent’s was always perceived as a local brand and the take over by C&C provided the cultural change that was required. They started to invest in advertising and sponsorship with a strong link to the history of the brand. With a lot of good pubs coming on to the market, we were able to provide liquidity to good operators that the banks would not provide. We continued to build networks and take advantage of the market by building relationships with operators with the resource and skill to expand. This gave us immediate volume and prominence in more establishments.

I was briefly Head of Finance: rest of the world for C&C Group before moving in to the Finance Director position for the Tennent’s business in Scotland.

Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, De

I joined Damovo as their head of treasury and financial planning which was a great move, as in a larger business entity these two elements of finance would never have gone together. I was familiar with the FP&A side from my time in Belgium, and the reporting and KPI side was well within in my skill set. The treasury aspect however was new to me and allowed me to gain exposure to FX, hedging, etc. S&N had always been a cash rich company but Damovo was effectively owned by the bondholders and so cash was under constant focus. It also gave me exposure to a re-financing exercise which was a great learning experience. The move to a smaller company allowed me to get a range of exposure that larger companies would have been too big to provide.

I was the commercial finance manager for Eastern Europe and worked alongside Carlsberg in JV, BBH. I was responsible for visiting different business areas and discussing brand plans, customer negotiations and ultimately to develop a Western European commercial structure. At this point S&N were taken over and I was approached by Carlsberg to join them full-time, however there was a process for everything and a unilateral approach to all areas, which was starkly different to S&N. This, combined with the fact that I had been working within brewing for eight years, prompted me to move back to Scotland and do something different.

After a period of time I moved to become sales and marketing controller within S&N Belgium, which provided me with line finance experience and the cultural experience of working internationally. This allowed me to get down to a front facing finance role as I had previously been more exposed to the corporate side.

I became as an Investor Relations Analyst where I pulled together figures and analysis and provided these to the group executive team to allow them to be as prepared as possible for investor meetings and presentations. This gave me a great insight to senior directors within the business and to seeing how strategy worked and how a business goes about communicating effectively.

Ca

Meng, Civil Engineering