Complete ownership of business finance, controlling and tax functions across 2 business divisions, 5 legal entities and 7 market clusters within Middle East and Africa along with strategic oversight over Latin America operations. Leading and developing a team of 16 finance colleagues across UAE, KSA, Egypt, South Africa and Brazil. Driving the planning of bi-annual budgeting cycle for all business divisions and presenting monthly commercial performance results to Commercial VPs and global CFO, as well as quarterly reviews with Board of Directors. Ensuring compliance with statutory requirements, including timely completion of all external audits and tax obligations. Proactively steering working capital optimisation, with the help of monthly cash forecasting and engagement with distributors for payment terms rationalisation, receivables collection and AP management. Actively partnering with commercial, legal, and regulatory teams for strategic projects including restructuring of operations, new product launches, market exits and divestments.

Achieved all working capital targets by driving accountability and influencing regional CFOs and commercial heads. Led the finance transformation initiative in setting up global processes around balance sheet and cash flow management and developing KPIs and systemic reporting to track business performance on cash. Established processes for monitoring, consolidating, and analysing global balance sheet, cash flow and working capital metrics of the group and its entities across the globe. Coordinated with up to 30 group companies for planning and tracking KPIs. Led monthly presentation to CEO and CFO about the key performance trends in cash and working capital and action plans for meeting targets.

Business partnering with the commercial leadership to review, analyse and forecast sales numbers. Prepared a model to analyse sales terms with customers to measure the impact of promotions. Based on the results, prepared a promotion strategy that would enable savings of £13 million. Led a project to investigate the commercial accruals relating to sales promotions and trade discounts to ensure the balances are established as reasonable and prudent.

I have been leading the implementation of Department of Health (DH)'s eProcurement strategy for suppliers, which cover the purchase-to-pay cycle and product data standardization and publication. I mobilized the IT team to develop EDI e-messages for transmission of POs and invoices between customers and suppliers using PEPPOL standards. I also mobilized the product teams to implement processes for collecting product codes & attributes. Key to achieving this was lobbying with trade bodies, DH, market studies and harnessing all internal resources from our global teams.

As the Controllership lead for Enterprise Standards Chart of Accounts (CoA) implementation, I ensured smooth conversion of the CoA for two ERPs: Oracle Bioprod and SAP. I organized a team of 3 reports, rolled out training & testing plan for the Controllership & Shared Services organizations with more than a thousand users, ensured all concerns and defects were resolved before go-live. This involved intensive rigour to drive the system changes touching all the functions, keeping on top of system interfaces, set ups and configurations as well as post-implementation support.

I led financial reporting for Subsea Systems HQ, taking over responsibility for driving monthly & quarterly closing across all Subsea locations from Australia to Brazil. I also led balance sheet reviews to HQ, tracking regional deliverables and providing guidance on technical accounting to our global teams. I drove significant improvement in reporting quality and metrics on accuracy and timeliness. I led initiatives on Enterprise Standards, efficiencies in the closing process, new ERP rollout, regional trainings and resolving long-standing audit issues. My team included 3 reports.

Corporate Audit Staff (CAS) is GE’s premier leadership program for experienced finance professionals, offering ample exposure to GE’s finance and operational systems and processes. The role involves working with and pitching to senior business leaders about audit findings, their resolution and follow up. I performed audit, compliance and special assignments at GE Corporate, Russia, GE Healthcare in Mexico, Brazil and United States, GE Oil & Gas acquisitions in South Africa and France, Business Development in United States and GE Transportation in United States.

Global Operations Finance was a shared-services finance and HR organization. In this project, I paved the way for transitioning to a leaner and more robust buy-to-pay process, particularly in the area of sourcing, accounts payables and treasury, by identifying and eliminating bottlenecks.

In this role, I ensured accurate and timely reporting of the financial statements, ensured that the team met monthly and quarterly closing requirements in coordination with regional FP&A and Controllership teams. Other than my core responsibilities, some of the initiatives I delivered were creating GBS pricing model (transfer pricing), preparing operating plan (budgeting), review of account reconciliations and submission of quarterly disclosure reports.

Mawarid Holding Company is a conglomerate with businesses across Middle East and North Africa region and interests in telecom, media, restaurants and pharmaceutical sectors. Reporting to Director Internal Audit, I helped design overall audit strategies and performed audit assignments at the group’s Saudi franchise of Pizza Hut restaurants and Orbit Pay TV service in Bahrain. Prepared a comprehensive report on the company’s subscriber management system that is still used as reference document.

I worked for 4 years as an Audit Trainee at E&Y for my Chartered Accountancy qualification, and after graduating, 8 months as Audit Supervisor. Working in E&Y afforded me great insight into the accounting and internal control systems of banking and financial services, telecom, oil and gas exploration, healthcare and power generation industries, as well as non-profit development sector, as I performed audits and consultancy assignments in companies operating in these industries.