Samara Zendera Email & Phone Number

London, England, United Kingdom

London, England, United Kingdom

Responsible for the governance, control and strategic overview of the charity.

Reponsible for the stewardship, strategic direction and governance of GD as well as a member of Finance Committee.

Reporting to the director of Structural Reform and system transformation, this role was based in Management Information Systems team. The role consisted of establishing and embedding changes to align to Structural Reform regulatory changes as well as implementing more robust system across the finance division. I supported the business through changes in the organisational structure by producing supporting management information as well as streamlining reporting. The annual revenue of the business is £3.6bn, loans of c£70bn and deposits of £118bn.Project lead for Hyperion implementation for replacing a legacy system of reporting Actuals and Planning information. This involved capturing the business requirements, liaising with the technical developers to build the systems whilst providing solutions to the business on the system functionality. I oversaw the review and testing of the system capabilities. I had regular engagement with various users on updates to the system requirements and changes to be implemented by the system architects, UAT testing as well as driving solutions to system build issues and rolling out training to the wider finance teams on and offshore.Built the division’s impact assessment during the organisation’s restructure of one of the businesses to capture the minimum dataset as an offline golden source for reporting and audit trail purposes, produced an impact assessment deck which enabled the corporate CFO to gain greater understanding on the changes in the business as a result of Business Banking rolling up into the Corporate bank. This process involved active engagement and consultation with the various owners of allocation lines including Financial control, Risk and Treasury teams to have a clear and consistent approach to divisional allocations on the P&L and Balance Sheet as well as with the donating business to ensure the right portion of their business was being transferred over.

London, United Kingdom

Responsible for budgeting and forecasting, external reporting to meet PRA requirements for Stress Testing, FDSF and Independent Commission on Banking (ICB). Produced performance analysis of debt, deposit margins and the various CIB businesses through a review of key performance indicators and weekly forecasting of the Income statement and Balance Sheet. Involved in all aspects of business reporting as well as the analysis and challenge of forecasts to enable the businesses to achieve budget and deliver strong and sustainable growth. Undertake project work to support business and functional requirements such as quarterly reporting and analysis for the CFO and executive boardDelivered 3 full year consolidated Group budgets and 3 strategic forecasts for Board sign-off, whilst co-ordinating the Debt, Deposit, Treasury, Risk, Customer Solution group, Cost and 5 businesses within the Corporate Banking Division. Ensured buy-in from all budget holders, FD and CEO of the division with commitment to targets, often providing guidance to non-Finance personnel on the budget process and cost control. Streamlined the current budgeting process to include more direct involvement and communication with the Business finance functions, which cut the timescale of the end-to-end process into half. Assisted the deposit team in securing £1bn of intercompany trades driven from interpreting complex systems and numerous contacts within our International Markets division.Prepared external reporting for the PRA including sensitivity analysis in the form Stress testing and fed into the Independent Commission on Banking structure of division of the Corporate bank into the relative appropriate categories which come into force in 2018 Designed monthly distribution information packs, including direct contribution P&L, performance KPIs and weekly forecast where there had been no standard information available to business managing directors previously.

Responsible for the agreement of all employee tax issues directly with the HM Revenue & Customs, prepared Network Rail’s statutory Income Tax and National Insurance submissions including Class 1A National Insurance, termination payments returns, as well as the Pay As You Earn Settlement Agreement. Negotiated with the HMRC on all employer liability issues, provided employment tax advice to our employees with issues that bear implications on Network Rail’s tax position such as company car and van liabilities and any terms and conditions which may have tax consequences on the company and employees at large.Formulated appropriate systems to reduce future liabilities such driving implementation and company-wide use of systems including i-expenses, vehicle trackers and smart pensions which lead to a significant reduction in tax liabilities from more effective capture of accurate information. Assisted in the training of employees on the financial asset categorisation for the annual tax reporting pack submissions and enforced best practice of the relevant information needed from employees to ensure we met our dispensation agreementSupported in-house training of thirty thousand employees to facilitate accurate and timely reporting in respect of all direct taxes.

Key tasks involved month-end closing, variance analysis, budgeting and forecasting, preparing accruals and prepayments, preparation of management information reports to budget holders.Increased accuracy of the management information reports to improve information flow between Finance and the business.Monitored corporate governance throughout the function and review compliance with financial regulations.Assisted in investment appraisals and business case analysis.

Produced management information within the trust with a focus on cost control, month-end closing, year-end preparation of financial statements and audits.Provision of prompt and professional advice to budget holders by providing information for business cases, service developments, cost pressures & cost improvement programmes Preparation of Income & Expenditure statements including exception reports for variances and contributing towards the year-end forecast projections.Discussion of complex and sensitive information with non financial staff, analysing and converting that into useful financial information.Co-operated with budget holders to establish activity and expenditure information to change sensitive management information.