European Strategic Planning and Initiative alignment

High level of integration with European business leaders and key members of their teams. Design, implementation, and subsequent improvement to process and models. Delivered a robust cross regional, cross functional set of regional and consolidated plans over a five year horizon built from specific initiatives with local buy-in.

Margin Management

Driving improvements in commercial & financial functions to ensure financial cohesion of initiatives, budgets and re-forecasts to maintain gross margin in volatile commercial and raw material markets. Identification of contingency requirements and managing expectations across the business.

Financial Performance Clarity

Supporting regionally based Sector Commercial Controllers to ensure effective cohesion, and enable business opportunities to be progressed. Reviewing and challenging commercial trends by region, sector, and product group, to maximise business revenues and ensuring the use of pricing management methodologies and toolkits to enable improved customer profitability. Use of bridges to enhance understanding of performance drivers within the business, in particular, complex margin situations.

Investigation of performance issues and advising on corrective actions

Working with local teams in under-performing regions to identify remedial actions, quantify impacts and drive improvements. Providing clear information and a forward view to enable timely reaction.

Integration of proposals for complex cross regional expansion projects

Ensuring cross regional impacts are understood and robust quantification incorporated in proposals, including new regions and new production lines.

Group Finance Function support during ownership transition

Budget review of operating divisions, preparation of group budget presentation to lenders, and definition and operation of margin analysis by operating division plus core product range. Preparation of refinance information.

Finance Team Restructuring

Relocated divisional finance function from Paris to the UK, with reduced core staff and achieved improvements in profit, cashflow and working capital forecasting and reporting across all business entities. Shifted structural focus to use short term project roles involving finance specialists to work on key business initiatives aligned to strategy.

Policy & Process adherence reviews

Various specific reviews to ensure adherence and recommend improvements, typically across pricing policy, margin management, stock holding and systems effectiveness of operation.