Neil Smith Email & Phone Number

Bournemouth, England, Gb

Bournemouth, England, United Kingdom

Bournemouth, United Kingdom

Bournemouth, United Kingdom

Bournemouth, United Kingdom

o Delivered the company’s first OPEX budget within 2 months of joining.o In order to achieve that, I quickly developed good relationships with the key stakeholders within the business. This has enabled me to gain a detailed understanding of the company’s operational expenses.o Implemented business partnering meetings with all the department heads to track and monitor performance.o Built a simple, easy to understand management pack suitable for the non-finance… Show more o Delivered the company’s first OPEX budget within 2 months of joining.o In order to achieve that, I quickly developed good relationships with the key stakeholders within the business. This has enabled me to gain a detailed understanding of the company’s operational expenses.o Implemented business partnering meetings with all the department heads to track and monitor performance.o Built a simple, easy to understand management pack suitable for the non-finance audience.o Developed a suite of reports to enable more efficient monthly reporting and also allowed the business to understand and report the key drivers of Gross Margin, Cost of Sales, negative performance and identification of risks and opportunities.o Monthly OPEX variance anaylsis with detailed commentary on current spend.o Forecast of spend for the remainder of the year based on run rates and information gained from business partnering.o Remodeled the businesses Cost to Acquire and Cost to Serve calculations making them simpler and easier to understand.o Assisted with the latest 5-year business plan. Provided each department head with a comprehensive list of current spend habits to enable them to produce a budget proposal. Worked with the Finance Director to consolidate all the proposals and establish whether any current costs had been missed.o Production of the full year budget with monthly phasing of costs based on the figures in the 5 year plan. o Created various waterfalls/bridges to for Actuals vs Budget, Full Year Forecast vs Budget and FY forecast vs next years budget. Show less

Bournemouth

o Support the Procurement function by providing analytical insight.o Prepare spend reports highlighting trends and variances.o Provide insightful analysis to support the leadership team in decision making.o Ensure the timely compilation and regular delivery of performance management analysis.o Produce monthly Procurement dashboard highlighting metrics including cashbook analysis, no of suppliers and supplier segmentation.o Implemented weekly savings pack, for the leadership… Show more o Support the Procurement function by providing analytical insight.o Prepare spend reports highlighting trends and variances.o Provide insightful analysis to support the leadership team in decision making.o Ensure the timely compilation and regular delivery of performance management analysis.o Produce monthly Procurement dashboard highlighting metrics including cashbook analysis, no of suppliers and supplier segmentation.o Implemented weekly savings pack, for the leadership team, detailing supplier savings against the functions annual target.o As part of the new category management implementation I built category spend packs for each of the 21 categories. Show less

o Provide help, support and advise to the Life Business relating to all aspects of controls, risk and process improvement.o Built complex reports, in Business Objects, to help customer experience mitigate potential issues and risks.o Drive change in the business through designing and implementing various new automated procedures to help the business, such as unauthorised payments, BACs notifications, valuations hub, outstanding fees and numerous control reports.o Involved in and… Show more o Provide help, support and advise to the Life Business relating to all aspects of controls, risk and process improvement.o Built complex reports, in Business Objects, to help customer experience mitigate potential issues and risks.o Drive change in the business through designing and implementing various new automated procedures to help the business, such as unauthorised payments, BACs notifications, valuations hub, outstanding fees and numerous control reports.o Involved in and helped deliver a number of key projects including SIPP valuations and Management charges.o Maintain, monitor and analyse the suite of control reports to ensure the long term business goals continue to be met.o Provide adhoc reports, answer technical queries and help with system issues for all areas of the business, including Finance and CIO, when requested. Show less

o Designed, developed and maintained a Unit Pricing process for LV’s range of Insured Pension funds.o Performed a daily valuation of over £1bn of AUM across 20 fund managers.o Improved daily unit pricing to reduce the time from 6 to 3 hours, due to automating manual processes using macros and driving system changes to enable a seamless upload of data files; eliminating manual entry.o Removed 1 days market exposure through all the process improvements thus reduced the businesses… Show more o Designed, developed and maintained a Unit Pricing process for LV’s range of Insured Pension funds.o Performed a daily valuation of over £1bn of AUM across 20 fund managers.o Improved daily unit pricing to reduce the time from 6 to 3 hours, due to automating manual processes using macros and driving system changes to enable a seamless upload of data files; eliminating manual entry.o Removed 1 days market exposure through all the process improvements thus reduced the businesses market risk from 2 days to 1 day.o Processed, on average, over 1,000 trades per month using euroclear’s EMX trading platform. Implemented a new process to automate the uploading of these trades thus eliminating all manual processes and reducing time from 30-60 mins/day to a matter of seconds.o Implemented automated process to produce our settlement chaps; incorporating system downloads and EMX reports to reconcile the figures to ensure we are settling the correct trades.o Provided input to all risk attestations relating to unit pricing.o Built a Finance dashboard to enable more efficient monthly reporting of all Financial MI relating to the UL Pension product.o Monthly accounting for Retirement Solution Insured Pensions.o Responsible for monthly preparation of Analytical Review as part of MI pack including producing comparative figures and commentary in relation to movements in the P&L and Balance Sheet.o Assisting in CASS Client Money and Asset Returns reconciliations with adherence to the FCA handbook reporting requirements and preparation of in-house Client Money reports.o Responsible for monthly CMAR reconciliations and FCA returns via Gabriel.o Owned the monthly reconciliation metrics, created an easy to follow summary of our 3 main products to enable management to track outstanding items. Show less

Hitchin

o Continued as P&L Analyst for the group, as per previous role.o Selected to be part of the team which transferred to LV and was subsequently asked to undertake cross training with the Investment Accounts team who looked after all the Unit Linked Pensions investments.o Established myself within the team and was soon able to undertake the pricing roles without supervision which helped immensely with the transition.o Involved in the transferring of assets to LV= and setting up of new… Show more o Continued as P&L Analyst for the group, as per previous role.o Selected to be part of the team which transferred to LV and was subsequently asked to undertake cross training with the Investment Accounts team who looked after all the Unit Linked Pensions investments.o Established myself within the team and was soon able to undertake the pricing roles without supervision which helped immensely with the transition.o Involved in the transferring of assets to LV= and setting up of new relationships with the existing fund managers.o Adapted and improved the processes in readiness for the transfer which enabled a successful and smooth transition to LV=. Show less

Hitchin

o Assisted with the preparation of budgets throughout the annual planning cycle.o Provided analysis of current and past trends in key performance indicators including all areas of revenue, cost of sales and expenses.o Monitored performance indicators, highlighting trends and analysing causes of unexpected variances.o Provided monthly variance analysis, of profit, revenue and cost of sales, including walks between actuals and budgets.o Worked closely with the leadership team to… Show more o Assisted with the preparation of budgets throughout the annual planning cycle.o Provided analysis of current and past trends in key performance indicators including all areas of revenue, cost of sales and expenses.o Monitored performance indicators, highlighting trends and analysing causes of unexpected variances.o Provided monthly variance analysis, of profit, revenue and cost of sales, including walks between actuals and budgets.o Worked closely with the leadership team to analyse the monthly P&L and determine robust assumptions to Show less