Stuart Cheetham Email & Phone Number

Divisional Finance Controller for the Group Support Services Division, covering the central support functions (Growth, Property, Procurement, HR, Finance etc) c£200m annualised cost base. Also holding the role of Senior Finance Business Partner to Executive Function heads for many of the Functions during tenure (CEO-1 including Chief General Counsel, Director of Corporate Affairs etc).Principle duties;Divisional Financial Controller role:Oversee an appropriate control framework/environment for the Division. Supervise the creation of monthly and annual reports to identify results, trends, and financial forecasts. Develop and issue Divisional guidelines for planning & forecasting.Manage cash flow / working capital. Collaborate with auditors, group and internal, to ensure proper compliance with all regulations. Present reports to senior executives, stakeholders, and Exec committee members (including Chief Financial Officer). Manage structure of the Division.Supervise, manage & motivate financial department staff, including Business Partners & Financial Controllers. Senior Finance Business Partner role:Responsible for the preparation and development of management and financial accounts and to provide high quality support and advice to budget holders, managers, and other staff (including Chief General Counsel, Chief Corporate Development Officer, Director of Corporate Affairs, CEO-1).Coordinate the month end process and all general accounting activity for the Functions. Supervise the creation of monthly and annual reports to identify results and trends.Provide guidance on any technical or planning requirements.Develop & Review all financial plans and budgets and deliver cost reduction opportunities.

Manchester, United Kingdom

Financial Controller for the Legal, Financial & Regulatory Services Division, formed of multiple businesses, multiple locations, delivering a diverse set of financial services, approx. £200million Revenue and 3,000 employees.Principle DutiesResponsible for overseeing the production of the consolidated Monthly Operating Board pack, including monthly financial statements, detailed variance analysis, monthly FY forecast update and identification of risks and opportunities.Responsible for ensuring tight control on working capital to ensure operating cash flow is maximised.Responsible for supporting the integration of recent acquisitions onto Capita’s financial systems and implementing Capita’s proven financial control environment and governance structure over the project phase and into BAU .Responsible for overseeing and consolidating Margin Improvement Plans and delivery of target operational savings across all businesses.Co-ordinate the annual business planning process.Lead financial due diligence on any new potential acquisitions.Lead a review of financial governance to ensure compliance with the company’s financial policies; review and improvement of financial controls, systems and processes to support and enhance the overall development and growth of the business.Support the commercial tendering process across the businesses.

Financial Controller for multiple businesses, multiple locations, delivering a diverse software product set, £50million Revenue, 500 employees.Principle DutiesProvide financial assurance that effective & appropriate governance exists for all bids, projects & key financial processes.Ensure systems, processes & procedures are in place & enhanced so all internal & external reporting timescales are met.Internal/External Audit relationships.Finance lead at the Business Risk forum ensuring recommendations are implemented.Lead the annual financial planning cycle & ensure quality relevant performance information is identified, captured & communicated, including advice to maximise opportunity.Lead the production of monthly management accounts, forecasts & all other financial information relevant to stakeholders.Review in year performance including assessment of trends, identification of key issues, mitigation & action plans.Support commercial tendering process ensuring all business cases are financially robust & based on sound operational evidence. Provide professional & managerial leadership to the Finance team, including the appraisal, monitoring, mentoring & development of staff.Main AchievementsBusiness Partner supporting Capita Integrated Business Solutions (financial & procurement software & services) in exceeding its financial plans each year post-acquisition, whilst adding to remit multiple businesses across many locations. Achieved through creation of systems to optimise production of key performance data & its delivery to stakeholders, embedding their use to instil ownership, ensure measurement & challenge occurs.12 month Change Management project for the design & implementation of a new project reporting toolset.Due Diligence on acquisitions.Integrating & on-boarding business acquisitions into the Capita model.Client Relationship building & management resulting in resolution of major debt collection issue, improved half yr/yr end cash flow £1m+.

IBA Health Group Limited domiciled in Australia, purchased ISOFT plc in late 2007, and continued to pioneer the next generation of healthcare IT products. I continued to be accountable for IB Solutions Ltd, taking responsibility for Audit, weekly cash flow and working capital, and the embedding of reports I created.Ownership of all aspects of the financial reporting and planning cycles on a monthly and annual basis including P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash flow, Working Capital, Budgeting process, Credit Control, Quarterly Forecasts, capital expenditure appraisal and approval, the Statutory Accounts Audit process, and jointly present Monthly Finance and Operations packs to Group CFO & COO in partnership with MD business partner. (Systems: Cognos, SUN)Main AchievementsResponsible for multiple year and multiple legal entity Audit process leading to no recommended Audit adjustments other than for Group policy changes. This would be the culmination of months of Audit query each year across 200+ client contracts, revenue recognition, working capital, full cost base treatment, balance sheet, internal governance and control processes.Transformation of finance role from primarily reporting transactional and business performance to true business partnering through process of streamlining reporting activities allowing for value add activities with MD, Delivery & Commercial.The sole Finance representative for IB Solutions Ltd in assisting Grant Thornton LLP prepare the Vendor Due Diligence pack in preparation for the Sale of IB Solutions Ltd. Providing historical financial performance (2 years) and forecast (3 years) data involving 200+ client contracts, 3 legal entities, analysed by product, service, sector, working capital and cash flow, standalone estimates, year on year bridging, key dependencies, order book & pipeline, overhead, staffing, R&D and margin analyses. All achieved whilst maintaining BAU activities.

Responsible for IB Solutions Ltd, a company delivering financial & procurement software solutions, which consisted of 3 separate statutory entities (UK, Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong) reporting as one consolidated business for Group purposes, £15m Revenue combined.Ownership of all aspects of the financial reporting and planning cycles on a monthly and annual basis including P&L, Balance Sheet, Budgeting process, Credit Control, Quarterly Forecasts, Quarterly VAT returns, and jointly present Monthly Finance and Operations packs to Group CFO & COO in partnership with MD business partners. (Systems: Cognos, SUN)Main AchievementsFinancial Database design and development to consolidate multi source data, reducing resource requirement and providing finance data optimised for ease of use. This project took approximately 2 months to perfect and allowed me to manage 16 cost centres across 3 legal entities during month end to meet Group deadlines ahead of schedule which translated to a complete transformation of this businesses track record.Implementation of new reporting process to enable Credit Control initiatives which reduced total Trade Debt run rate by £0.6m+ and reduced over 90 day debt by 80%.Created, delivered and established a Monthly Finance presentation to Executive Management Team of IB Solutions Ltd for delivery at the EMT Monthly Meetings.Created and established reporting and control procedures to communicate financial results and identification of issues, such as working capital and aged earned income analysis, revenue & billing reports, payroll & headcount reconciliations, direct cost analysis, capital expenditure forecasting and justification templates, addressing underlying control weaknesses.

Voluntary teaching project in Southeast Asia to educate, inspire, learn and affect positive change.

Univar (UK) Ltd is the UK division of Univar NV, one of the world’s leading distributors of industrial chemicals.My career with Univar began with responsibility for just the Widnes spoke site (Univar operated a Hub & Spoke distribution model) but soon grew to encompass 4 other spoke sites across the UK being Dundee, Glasgow, Cardiff and Exeter, before finally including the major Hub Manchester following a business case I prepared to consolidate a peer's role into my own with an additional Assistant Management Accountant reporting to me.Responsible for P&L, Balance Sheet, Budgeting process, rolling Forecasts, capital expenditure appraisal, product margin analysis, establishing internal controls, and jointly presenting the Monthly Finance & Operations pack to UK Finance & Ops Directors in partnership with site Directors. (Systems: BAAN)Main AchievementsImproved business performance information resulting in cost saving initiatives which delivered £0.5m savings, representing 21% of site costs. Driven by the accurate and timely delivery of management reporting with full granularity.Developed stock control processes which achieved 90% reduction in stock losses (savings of £0.2m). Ensuring stock return & movement’s governance compliance and implementing warehouse spot checks by finance.Financial Database designed and developed to consolidate multi source data, embedded into business process across the UK, reducing month end resource requirement and providing finance data optimised for ease of use. This took approximately 1 month to develop before presenting to the finance community (7 peers and seniors).

Optoplast was established in 1946 and provided quality eyeglasses cases and optical accessories on an international scale. Assistant Accountant in a Finance team of 5.Responsible for analysing customer buying patterns and sales margins, reconciling stock movement, calculating cost of imported product for stock valuation, making and recording payments to Far East suppliers, amongst other ad-hoc finance duties. (Systems: AXIS)Main AchievementsDesigned and developed a stock purchasing database enabling reduction of business process from 2 days to 2 hours. This took approximately 2 weeks to build following submission of a business case to request ledger extract functionality to be added to the finance software.

Responsible for trend and variance analysis, accruals & prepayments, cost estimates for R&D projects, amongst other ad-hoc finance duties. (Systems: ROSS)Main AchievementsAssisted in the development of a client server approach to the use of the General Ledger System using Microsoft Access, also responsible for the maintenance once developed. MS Access functionality used to extract data directly from the finance system combined with a relationship matrix providing up to the minute ledger data in excel containing the whole Trust's transactional activity. This was used by all Finance teams in the Trust and took approximately 6 months to develop.Creation of the training literature and delivery of the training for all NHS Trust Finance peers and seniors (30+ employees, up to and including the Deputy Director of Finance) in the use of the General Ledger report writing tool. This software tool sat alongside the general ledger but had its own report writing language, the data being highly useful but the language acting as a barrier to extended use. The whole project was my own creation and took approximately 3 months to deliver and afforded my peer group and new starters the opportunity to extract data and see the benefits, this led to the development of the client server approach mentioned above.Exposure to Absorption costing through assisting in the Dental Hospital National benchmarking exercise, for returns within national timetable. This project took 6 months to deliver through a process of continuous absorption from overhead, choosing appropriate methods of apportionment, through to direct costs and recording average time of activities, to arrive at a fully absorbed cost per activity.