PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE & SYSTEMS
TRAVELERS CANADA, Feb 2016 – Present
Develop and maintain timely and accurate financial statements and reports that are appropriate for the users and in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP)
Oversee the External Audit, review and analyze results and recommend for approval the Audited Financial Statements
Establish guidelines for budget and forecast preparation, and prepare the annual budget in consultation with the Executive Director and Treasurer and/or Finance Committee
Develop and oversee the Internal Review function to ensure that finance and operations controls and policies are complied with and ensure effective follow up processes are in place
Oversee the bookkeeping function including maintenance of the general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable and payroll
Manage the financial system, ensuing maximum productivity and that it meets the needs of the business today and the future
Oversee the continuous improvement of Accounting and Financial Processes and the development of the team with the goal to achieve best practices and optimal output
Provide coaching, guidance and support, set professional development plans to assist employees to reach their full potential through the Performance Management process
Coordinate, analyze and report the financial performance to Management and Board of Directors (financial performance, projections and other special projects as required)
FINANCE MANAGER
SLEEMAN BREWERIES LIMITED, Oct 2013 – Jan 2016
Managed the Finance Team to ensure the closure of Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Fixed Assets, Inventory and the General Ledger within the month-end close period and ensured timely reporting of monthly consolidated financial statements in accordance with FASB and IFRS
Prepared monthly analysis of cost of goods sold and operational expenses against prior year and budget, provided explanations and business solutions to help mitigate the risks
Analyzed financial performance against key business metrics and documented pertinent financial highlights that enabled management to determine progress against budgets
Presented quarterly presentations to the Senior Management Team highlighting the company’s financial results, variances to budget and forecast, key performance indicators and the company’s risk scorecard
Reviewed the monthly account reconciliations, identified and managed high risk items to avoid financial misstatements
Liaised with external auditors and managed the quarter-end reviews and year-end audits
Reduced month-end close cycle from 6 days to 5 days by: 1. Identifying interdependencies of tasks and re-arranging them amongst the Finance Team, 2. Maximizing Oracle’s ability to automate journal entries and tasks and reduce manual work, and 3. Creating checklists to manage all month-end tasks and journal entries
Managed Oracle super-users, created training documents and standard operating procedures (SOPs), tested Oracle upgrades, performed system set-ups for new operating units, warehouses etc… and monitored AR, AP, Inventory, Cash Management, Fixed Assets and General Ledger modules for errors
Led multiple cross-departmental projects – worked with core team to develop business requirements, designed as-is and to-be business process maps in MS Visio, provided weekly status updates, informed project champion of constraints early, and followed up with task owners to ensure project was completed on time
FINANCE SUPERVISOR
SLEEMAN BREWERIES LIMITED, Sep 2012 – Oct 2013
Supervised 3 Finance Associates who are responsible for the day to day activities associated with 1. Cash management, cash forecasting and bank reconciliation, 2. Fixed assets, 3. Intercompany transactions and reconciliations and 4. Financial System Monitoring and setups
Reviewed, approved and posted journal entries to ensure month-end close process is not delayed
Improved the company’s fixed asset policy based on IFRS and FASB principals and applied it to new projects to determine if they should be capitalized; managed the Fixed Asset register: adding and disposing of assets, and calculating depreciation; and planned semi-annual fixed asset inventory counts for three different plants
Designed an Accounts Receivable Credit Check and Credit Limit approval process and implemented the automation of the Order Hold / Release process in Oracle
Developed macros to prepare Consolidated Financial Statements for Sapporo Canada group and responded to inquiries from the Director of Financial Accounting and VP of Financial Accounting regarding variances
Developed a Risk Scored template for senior management to highlight the companies foreign exchange risk, commodity risk, cash liquidity risk, account receivable risk and breach of covenant risk
Created Access Databases that feed from NOETIX Data Storage and Data Mart to automate extraction of data from Oracle and put them on a server so that users can access the data using Excel tables and pivot tables
SENIOR ACOUNTANT
MSCM LLP, Jan 2011 – Sep 2012
Audited Canadian private and public companies in accordance with IFRS and ASPE frameworks; Performed Quarterly Reviews and Audits of US public corporations in accordance with US GAAP & FASB frameworks
Reviewed the working papers of the junior accountants to ensure the they were complete, met the accounting firms quality and addressed at least one assertion (validity, completeness, accuracy)
Performed System Walk-Throughs at client sites to understand the corporation’s operations, processes and environment
Assisted in the audit planning meetings by identifying key financial risk areas and proposing audit procedures to address the reasonability of management’s assumptions and assertions
Tested internal controls at client sites, identified internal control weaknesses and recommended alternatives to mitigate the risks
JUNIOR ACCOUNTANT
HENNICK HERMAN LLP, May 2010 – Dec 2010
Created Business Process Flow Charts of client processes to understand the processes and the surrounding controls in order to determine if the controls can be relied upon
Analyzed cost trends of small companies and suggested areas where costs could be reduce and how to reduce those costs to improve profits
Vouched sales invoices, purchase invoices and bank transactions to ensure the validity and completeness of the transactions and prepared working papers for the senior account to review
Assisted partners in Tax Planning to minimize the personal and corporate tax payable of the owner managed businesses, prepared and Filed T4s and T5s with Revenue Canada
FINANCE & IT ANALYST
CELESTICA INC., May 2008 – Aug 2009
Prepared IT cost accruals and estimated additional consulting and software maintenance costs to ensure all costs incurred by IT were included within the correct period
Analyzed actual costs and compared them to prior period, KPIs and competitors to understand why increases or decreases in costs occurred and reported findings to the manager
Performed internal audits, SOX testing and internal control testing to ensure IT systems and controls were secure and reliable in the preparation of financial statements
Reverse engineered the inter-company accrual process and create process flow diagrams which were used to analyze the as-is system and create the to-be system; Designed a new inter-company cost allocation and accrual process that eliminated unnecessary procedures and created a Macro in Excel (using VBA) to automate 90% of the accrual process and saved 2 days of work during month end
TECHNICAL SKILLS
ERP Systems: ORALCE, SAP, Programming Languages: VBA, Java, SQL, C, C++,
Software: MS Office, MS Visio, MS Project, Cognos Suite
EDUCATION
Chartered Professional Accountant
University of Toronto, May 2010 – July 2012
Masters of Management & Professional Accounting (MMPA)
University of Toronto, Sep 2005 – Apr 2010
Bachelor of Applied Science in Industrial Engineering (B.A.Sc. in Industrial Engineering)
Process Improvement, Lean & Six Sigma
VOLUNTEER
Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) Mentor Program
Mentor CPA students as they work towards their CPA designation