Stuart Knowles Email & Phone Number

Sydney, Australia

• Responsibilities
• Executing supplier contract negotiations, contract development & management
• Managing end to end sourcing processes, providing subject matter expertise & advice in the selection of appropriate purchasing strategies to deliver the best value for the businessAchievements
• Influenced lounges senior management to redesign global strategy & take lounge management contract to tender for the first time in a decade. Developed strategy & recommendations for the tender to deliver $4m of annual.
• Developed procurement strategy for the Qantas global lounge network (54 sites, $180m/£100m spend pa)
• Sourced, negotiated with, drafted contracts for & implemented multiple new suppliers to improve value for Qantas ($5m of savings established). The most significant agreement was with a new first-class lounge bathroom.

Sydney, Australia

• Responsibilities
• Being the finance subject matter expert for the global sales division (comprising sales, distribution, SME, contact centres, Qantas.com & mobile app, 400 employees)
• Leading finance involvement in the development & implementation of business strategies. Bringing unique knowledge & experience to projects to deliver the best value outcomes for Qantas
• Engaging with senior stakeholders, providing strategic support & commercial insight on business performance to deliver strategic & unit cost targets & influencing to reduce conservatismAchievements
• Led finance involvement in major projects for the sales division, such as Qantas Business Rewards (small business reward program that delivered $100m of incremental revenue in the first year of operation) and the.
• Built cost of sale model & reporting to give new insight to the business on the key drivers of cost. Then worked with stakeholders to drive cost reductions

Sydney, Australia

• Responsibilities
• Delivering a competitive advantage by using data from digital music downloads & new streaming platforms to develop insights & give commercial direction to the business to drive revenue improvements
• Assisting the business in conveying the critical nature of music streaming in the present & future, ensuring artists & management understand its valueAchievements
• Established relationships across the business to earn trust & prove the value of new team
• Developed a new commercial pack to give insight to the business on the key drivers of performance & areas of focus for improvement. The pack was used as a template for all other major global territories
• Developed & implemented new market share reporting to give details of the impact of internal & competitor actions on business performance

Watford, United Kingdom

• Responsibilities
• Developing & implementing a promotion strategy to stabilise margins & bring the business back to profit
• Completing pre, during & post promotion evaluations for major campaigns to ensure they were revenue-enhancing. Presenting findings & recommendations to senior managementAchievements
• Successfully engaged and influenced senior stakeholders to accept a new promotional strategy, which shifted focus to targeted sales activity rather than reactionary discounts
• Analysed options then influenced choice of offer & decision to run Mothercare’s biggest ever promotion, which drove +30% sales & substantial market share gains
• Oversaw successful reduction of in-store discounts by £2m yoy through implementation of new promotion code process & reporting

London, United Kingdom

• Responsibilities
• Providing internal consultancy services to the global technology business, sourcing & analysing information to drive strategic recommendations for projects
• Project management of approved strategic initiativesAchievements
• Completed a project that determined the long term target locations, sizes & functions of Barclaycard’s global call centre footprint, to improve customer advocacy while keeping functionality high & costs low
• Led a project analysing where employees lived & gave strategic recommendations for future office locations & transport infrastructure required
• Drew up a strategic framework to guide global operational decision making

London, United Kingdom

• Responsibilities
• Budgeting & forecasting for brands, business partnering with marketing & control of consumer advertising & promotion spend Achievements
• Modelled options for reducing scale of UK operations, or exiting the region, for Martell Brandy, in order to free up volume for the lucrative Asian market
• Successfully reduced promotional spend, to ensure profit was in line with forecast, by partnering with & influencing the Marketing team
• Completed detailed sales & marketing budgets for all brands in remit within the first 3 weeks of arrival in the business

Luton, United Kingdom

• Responsibilities
• Leading development & implementation of an online labour scheduling tool with the aim of reducing labour costs in restaurants by £10m
• Overseeing work & development of a direct reportAchievements
• Successful completion of development phase for a new labour scheduling tool including writing test scripts, completing user acceptance testing & developing reports

Luton, United Kingdom

• Responsibilities
• Setting multi-site sales budget (£600m pa) & forecast
• Providing KPI reporting, analysis & insight to key stakeholders in Revenue Management & MarketingAchievements
• Completed complex Excel modelling for a new pricing strategy that led to the commencement of a major implementation project. Seconded to the project implementation team. Won an award for building insight after the.
• Completed appraisal of tender responses and gave supplier recommendation for hotel WiFi RFP
• Set up new reports & processes, that improved profitability by reducing the number of complimentary rooms given away by 30%, after discovering a number of free rooms being issued for non-business reasons.

London, United Kingdom

• Responsibilities
• 3 rotations across Supply Chain Finance, Payroll & Store Takings
• Providing analysis, reporting & insights to heads of departments to enhance performance
• Production of statutory accounts, balance sheet reconciliations, P&L reporting, budgets & forecastsAchievements
• Identified opportunities to reduce stockholding & release an additional £50m at height of the recession
• Developed & implemented a new suite of informative reporting for wastage & stock holding