Interim CFO

A hands on operator ensuring a modern finance function that commercially serves the business.

An MBA and qualified accountant, with over 25 years senior interim and permanent experience in multinationals including the BBC, McGraw-Hill and Aviva, as well as at smaller complex organisations in the Technology and Media sectors.  This has included:

o Turnaround under-performing finance functions.

o Financial and operational due diligence.

o Delivering robust controls and solid working capital management.

o High quality historical and forecast information presenting “one version of the truth.”

o Up-skilling finance teams, transforming processes and a legacy for ongoing improvements.

Focus is bringing:

1. Financial Control & Visibility

2. Cost Effective Process Improvements

3. Commercial Finance Partner to Stakeholders

Selection of achievements:

1. Financial control and visibility

This £180m award winning FMCG group, exported blue chip and own brand products to over 100 countries. Following years of significant organic growth the finance department was struggling to produce the high level management reporting needed.

Working closely with the relevant stakeholders to:

Identify and remove bottle necks in the financial reporting process, noting gaps and duplication affecting their production.

Capture critical financial information from the global business system to feed automatically into the financial records. This introduced a greater rigour, took out significant resource cost in the financial reporting cycle and reduced reporting lead times by 60%.

Design new geographical contribution reporting covering over 100 countries using data mining, @vlookup and pivot table functions to deliver high level KPI’s and variance analysis to the CEO.

Introduced an integrated group multi-currency Cash flow, P&L and Balance Sheet model.

“Mike delivered amazing financial clarity to the business and left behind a legacy in the finance department for ongoing improvements. He proved a solid partner to me both financially and commercially and I would not hesitate to recommend him and MGT Consulting for other roles of this magnitude” CEO.

2. Cost effective process improvement

a) This multi national’s European SSC was responsible for the multi £ accounting transactions of several group companies (including Standard & Poors and OU Press). The centre’s processes were inefficient and costly, with the group input feeds varying widely.

Led the changes needed by:

Working alongside accounting staff, IT and the individual companies to standardise input feeds and redesign the finance area, replacing costly labour intensive processes with more efficient IT ones.

Delivering simplified end to end processes which reduced lead times by 25% and significantly improving financial information to senior management.

“Mike provided a valuable service to the directors and staff, bringing efficiency and simplified critical back office

Processes.” G.F. European Business Services Director, McGraw-Hill plc

b) This global news service operated its multi £m T&E process across 3 legacy systems and a large number of disparate spreadsheets whilst awaiting SAP in 12 months’ time. These current processes were overly complex and not fully understood, resulting in many costly errors and significant delays in settling claims.

Liaising with the outsourced IT partner and in house accounting team to:

Electronically eliminate 10,000 lines of contra entries in two systems, decommissioning the third.

Design a user friendly menu option which removed the need for disparate spreadsheets and allowed for desk top reconciliations eliminating 90% of errors and duplication immediately.

Pioneer enhanced T&E processes and ensure a cleansed data base for a smooth transition to SAP.

This methodology was adopted at other BBC Directorates.

“Mike provided leadership to staff and managed the implementation of IT enhancements leading to significant efficiency savings. The project was completed on time and on budget.” R.S. Account Manager, BBC News

3. Commercial Finance Partner

a) Norwich Union – bluecycle.com (UK’s largest online salvage company)

Overhauled B2B operations and processes to help prepare an internet subsidiary for a £45m increase in contract sales within three months. This allowed 25% of the accounting resource to move to more value added work.

“Mike assimilated a complex set of circumstances on issues the business faced and the actions which then needed to be taken, providing confidence in the results. S.E. CEO.

b) Wessex Archaeology Ltd (a leading heritage organisation)

Provided the business case to the Board for redesigning transactional processing on its 500 live projects.

Stakeholder presentations highlighting key financial drivers of the organisation and new accounting methods which immediately helped push £250,000 of WIP to invoice and collectability.

“Mike’s greatest achievement was that he brought finance staff and business managers together to work on their common problems” R.K. Chairman and former Government Minister.

"Mike’s input produced substantial returns on investment." A.B. Consultant and former FTSE 100 director.