Patrick Sheedy Email & Phone Number

London

Financial management and strategy for a worldwide range of publishing companies with offices in seven countries on three continents. Group Turnover £43m 2021, EBITDA £2m. Managed finance team of twenty-five people responsible for annual & monthly reporting, audit, tax compliance & financial analysis. • Transformation of financial systems and reporting methods from traditional trade publisher to an online ecommerce retailer, also incorporating subscription & wholesale divisions. • Implemented expansion of commercial agreements with CBS, Disney & Warner, to establish wider product base and support growth of new divisions.• Strengthened control environment through measures like instigating invoice approval software to provide greater control & accountability over expenditure. In conjunction tightened credit control by detailed mapping of debtor balances to specific customer targets to reduce debtor days overall from 55 to 42. • Instigated a process review across the business leading to clearer interpretation of IFRS & regional GAAP, enabling group and local audits to pass unadjusted from auditors. As standards improved this aided a reduction in admin costs, through challenging audit requirements reducing audit fees by 62%.• Developed integrated tax reporting, taking sales information from source directly to local authority. This reduced professional fees by 72%, reducing the need for resubmissions or adjustments and helped claim approx. £0.8m of backdated taxes.• Designed investment strategy of each component company to ensure right options used to secure support development. This ranged from bank support for fledgling companies through to joint venture partnerships for specific products.

Combining commercial understanding with newly created customer data sources to build a team focused on supporting expansion of new business. Growth of over 65% achieved in a two-year period, taking revenue from £12m in 2017 to £21m in 2019.• Construction of forecasting model which enabled marketeers’ better visibility on profitability & cost control. This linked to a set of KPI’s to allow marketing spend, the largest variable cost, to be controlled and comparisons made across different business streams.• Instigated management targets to give each division either a profit margin or another appropriate driver to focus performance to improve profit generation.• Developed business case & negotiation for changing distribution companies in UK, France & Germany, reducing costs by approx. €700k (12% reduction) which went straight to bottom line.• Targeted and developed acquisition options to increase speed of growth in new business. Once acquired then moved to integrating into processes and reporting requirements of group. • Responsible for licensing audits which typically cover a three-to-four-year period. Challenging finds of external specialists with evidence to reduce fines from $7 million to $0.12 million, a 98% reduction.

Change to private equity ownership provided greater commercial ambition. New role working with Marketing Director of Europe to develop new commercial relationships, from source material through to partnerships with publishers worldwide to utilise scalability of the products created.• Established new markets including Spain, Brazil, Mexico & Romania, securing new revenue of over £5m. • Generated new process procedures for the approval of any commercial agreements, utilising savings through negotiating for improved conditions or eliminating duplication.• Guided the financial integration from the merger with GE Fabbri publishing, migrating finance systems, harmonising budget process and reporting standards.

Managing reporting team of accountants in production of monthly reporting to support and hold business units to account, model potential investment developments & along with budgeting and forecasting at timely points in the financial year. • Ran financial systems upgrade project to move from five companies with individual accounting systems to SAP Business One.

Monthly management reporting of products in the European market, presenting to CEO & Finance Director.• Handling integration of new markets including Russia & Ukraine, which brought complex language and operational challenges.• Quarterly review of investment vehicles including joint venture results and sublicensing areas.

Part of a two-person team that was created to support the UK FD of Hays Plc with utilising data to support business development.• Developed discounting data to look at areas of the business which sacrifice volume for value, helping to define lost revenue at approx. 39%. Once defined then supported each division to take steps to address this loss.• Systems expert tasked with improving process improvements to enhance efficiency as part of change management project.

Preparation and production of profit & loss accounts, along with yearly & quarterly budgets for two division of Hays Plc. Reporting directly to Finance Director.• Changed the role to be more of a link between front and back office, with the emphasis on supporting the development of front office through regular performance updates in addition to cost to fee analysis.

Large contract management for clients including Bank of New York & Merrill Lynch. Resolving day-to-day queries and financial reporting focussing on profitability.• Data manipulation formed a large part of the work so used combination of formulas and macro’s to refine the process saving two days per week from the billing cycle.

Chartered Accountant

Bachelor'S Degree, Economics, 2.1