Senior Finance and Operations Executive
Leading Successful Start-up, Turnaround, and High Growth Companies
Consumer Products, Agriculture, Retail, Manufacturing
Summary of Experience:
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Highlights of my experience include:
● Middle-market focus, companies or divisions with sales up to $300M.
● Full function CFO with experience in Operations, Human Resources, Risk Management, Tax, Audit, Legal, and Banking.
o Diverse multi-site manufacturing knowledge with significant operations exposure, including line management.
● Outward focus with strong relationship management and negotiation skills ¡V customers, vendors, financial institutions, and investors.
● Management of bank relationships, analysis and reporting, compliance with and re-negotiation of covenants and establishment of asset based revolving lines of credit.
● Extensive experience with distribution, inventory purchasing and vendor management, margin improvement, aggressive cost reduction programs, product mix, pricing, and cost control.
● Creation and motivation of high performance teams to build infrastructure, address business practices, define key performance metrics, re-engineer work processes, and leverage IT.
● Hands-on implementation of tools that drive cash management practices, covering a broad range of catalysts from liquidity intervention to business seasonality.
● Classic financial planning and analysis background: beginning with 3-5 year strategic plan, annual plan, quarterly updates (3+9, 6+6, etc.), monthly forecast and daily/weekly metrics.
● Impeccable integrity. With my background in public accounting and CPA, I bring a strong focus on internal controls, good business practices, and ethical behavior.
I am an experienced finance professional who can provide the both financial planning and analysis to gain insight into the underlying business metrics and also be a strategic business partner to develop and execute related action plans. With rock solid technical skills, you will find that I am also hands-on, an incredibly fast learner, and an adaptive and involved leader who works well with others.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
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Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Private Equity sponsored company with $9M in Sales, whose contract manufacturing and distribution model is to provide FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) products to the residential and commercial markets.
● Staff of 22 across all functional areas.
● Reduced inventory 40% by establishing an accurate perpetual, selling excess/obsolete inventory, streamlining purchasing, creating make & hold programs for Chinese bamboo and sourcing all wood from domestic vendors.
● Prepared business plan and financial projections for 4Q 2008 Series B equity offering
● Implemented a broader market channel-product strategy by offering a variety of price points and revamping pricing to reflect the absence of a ¡§green¡¨ premium.
● Hands on restart and reorganization of the accounting department to revive failed IT system conversion, meet monthly reporting requirements and close out the acquisition audit.
Chief Financial Officer of Private Equity company that acquired three companies (Sales of $60M) to vertically integrate the farming (6,000 acres), pack shed and processing plant to offer onions year-round to Quick Service Restaurants with lot quality control from seed to table.
● Handled post-acquisition contract administration, resulting in a favorable purchase price adjustment of 5%.
● Moved from annual compiled agriculture-GAAP financials to monthly financials using annual standard costs with Capitalized Growing Cost category detail.
● Partnered with operations to develop metrics to improve performance by identifying variances as incurred.
● Hired an accounting staff of 8, established the monthly close process, consolidated the monthly reporting for the three separate businesses with variance analyses, and created a crop cycle model to forecast cash and anticipate contract pricing for the next year.
Chief Financial Officer of Private Equity sponsored Organic and Natural Foods company with Sales of $94M.
● Managed through $9M backlog in inventory payables > 90 days and successfully lead the company through workout.
● Established cash forecasting, working capital programs, and sales reporting by consolidating information for the four separate legal entities outside the existing separate IT systems to manage common vendors and customers.
● Prepared and presented business prospectus to banks as part of negotiating a $10M asset based line of credit.
● Achieved positive income for the first time in the company¡¦s history driven by the new bottoms up budget, which reduced trade spending +10%, cut manufacturing costs by $1M, and lowered headcount by 20%.
● Executed the due diligence, acquisition, and integration food company sales of $24M. Realized $649K favorable purchase price adjustment as part of the contract administration.
● Transitioned staff of 20 (accounting, planning, and IT) from transaction processing to strategic business catalyst.
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer for two optical accessory companies with $35M in sales which were bought by Merchant bank and pension fund investors.
● Staff of 116 responsible for accounting, customer service, distribution, plant operations and IT.
● Ran the business with a maximum of two weeks cash availability using new cash forecasting processes and working capital programs to meet all obligations with minimum revolver availability.
● Improved net Income by +$2.7M, in the face of declining prices and loss of customers to direct offshore sourcing. Met all principal and interest payments while reducing debt to a refinancable level.
● Consolidated plant operations and accelerated outsourcing, reduced headcount by 40%, and focused the business along market channels.
● Created Safety Committee and Illness and Injury Prevention Programs to lower worker¡¦s compensation rate.
● Developed a web-based intra-net to support sales and share customer information among internal users.
Chief Financial Officer of $174M autonomous division in FT-SE 100 British company with sales of $4B. Company manufactured paint and operated 77 retail stores in the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico.
● Staff of 48 responsible for financial reporting, planning and analysis, internal audit, retail store controls, IT, legal, insurance, store leasing and contract negotiations.
● Hired to revitalize operating performance: Improved financial performance during a period of industry consolidation: profit +143% [$10.9M], sales +55% [$58.5M], and cash flow +125% [$9M], product margins 5% or 2 points.
● Developed and sponsored business programs for fleet backhaul to lower common carrier freight [$1M], variable customer product line discounts [$.5M], and non-stock product ordering [$.3M]. Eliminated $1M in inventory losses, reducing shrink from 1.2% to .4% of sales.
● Partnered with sales management to formulate and win board approval for initiatives that resulted in twenty-one new stores, franchises in Mexico, and exports to Asia.
● Created an innovative IT strategy using web technologies for business automation and data warehousing.
Chief Financial Officer of Venture Capital backed $20M manufacturer with national food service distribution of specialty frozen gourmet desserts
● Managed the finance function on a ¡§survival¡¨ priority basis while rebuilding the accounting staff, capturing and creating management information, and implementing accounting policies and procedures.
● Implemented cash management to conserve cash pending additional equity infusion and bank refinancing. Improved DSOs 16 from 23, reduced RM inventories by 50%, and renegotiated vendor terms to mid-60s.
● Developed and presented business plan to banks to replace term loan with ABL pending sale of the business.
North American Finance Director of $175M Division of Forbes 400 company with $2.6B in sales. Division consisted of six SBUs, which manufacture custom labels for customers in Canada, Mexico, South America and the U.S.
● Moved group headcount to the operating units and rationalized divisions to prepare business for sale.
● Hired 6 Division Controllers and mentored them in their new financial management roles.
● Improved profit by $8.1M and reduced invested capital 20% on stable sales. Lowered working capital 33%, primarily by doubling inventory turns. Pared fixed assets by 20%.
● Activity Based Costing intervention to analyze customer/product mix profitability and realign manufacturing to markets.
● Realized annual IT savings of +$1M by moving local SBU transaction processing to shared financial systems.
Vice President, Finance & Administration - $30M in sales consumer products division with $30M in sales of $300M parent.
● Directed creation of a self-sufficient division to introduce premium-priced, niche food products.
● Improved profitability by several million dollars via new price leadership strategy.
● Saved $1.5M in cash flow by implementing controls season-end inventory hold-and-rebill repurchases.
● Re-engineered business practices for pricing, order entry, cash application, trade deal deduction resolution.
Assistant Controller of $300M Division of National Food Company with $5.6B in sales.
Public Accounting audit team member on engagements for a brass foundry, an automotive parts manufacturer, and a publishing company.
EDUCATION
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, Evanston, IL
J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management
Master of Management - Concentration in Marketing, Management Policy, Finance
RICE UNIVERSITY, Houston, TX
Master of Accounting
Bachelor of Arts in Economics/French |
