Chief Financial Officer / VP Finance / Management Advisor / Turnaround Exec.
Finance executive with consulting experience; currently finalizing dramatic turnaround of manufacturing company; cross functional expertise; $160+ M profit improvements; $100+ M acquisition synergies; $100+ M financing; $800+ M in customer contracts; 20+ acquisitions; broad industry experience. Wharton MBA (top 4%); CPA
CFO / COO, 2009 Present, POWERSPORTS COMPANY (a v-twin motorcycle performance parts and engine manufacturer, who lost 34% of their revenue in FY09 resulting in a 13% net income margin drop)
Implemented successful turnaround involving: a) reducing SG&A cost by 31%, b) refinancing and raising money from multiple lenders during tough financial situation, c) growing revenues by 62%, all from new customers, d) reducing core segment inventory by 35% and e) acquiring competitor assets
Result is net income margin up 28% vs. FY09 and up 15% vs. FY08
Partner / Principal, 2003 2009, XYZ CONSULTANTS / ABC CONSULTING GROUP (managing consulting projects for Powersports company, Spectrum Brands, United Industries (now Home & Garden division of Spectrum Brands), a $1.5 B printing company, Kodak Commercial Imaging Group, a $3 B paper company, Print Distributor and others). Worked with several Thomas H. Lee Partners sponsored companies
Performed diagnostics for several clients typically finding opportunities to improve margins by 3 6%
Identified costs reductions of $40 M for printing company. Restructured sales and marketing organization to achieve key account focus and realize 25% productivity improvement for a consumer products company.
Integrated $150 M, $300 M and $1 B revenue acquisitions to achieve $100+ M in synergies
Includes seven month assignment in 2007 as interim Chief Financial Officer for $700 M U.S. and Canadian Home & Garden division of SPECTRUM BRANDS, INC.
Managed finance and accounting functions for Spectrums $700 M Home & Garden division that was being separated to make it easier to sell the US division. Sold Canadian division.
Chief Financial Officer, 1998 2003, PRINT DISTRIBUTOR (a print, document imaging and office products broker, distributor & service bureau that we grew from zero to over $100 M in revenue).
Managed accounting, reporting, audit, tax, legal, HR benefits and lender relationship. Negotiated and integrated 11 acquisitions.
Raised $60 M from Thoma Cressey Equity Partners and lenders.
Financial Advisor, 5 mos. 1998, NATIONAL AUTO CREDIT, (a public, sub-prime lender with $400 M in assets).
Implemented $20 M in profit improvements and found $100 M in loan reserve shortfall
Vice President, Finance and Contract Management, 1996 - 1998; Director of Business Development, 1992 - 1996; Director of Corporate Development, 1989 1991, MOORE CORPORATION (now R.R. DONNELLEY), (a printing, direct marketing, statement rendering and software company with $2.6 B of revenue).
Negotiated outsourcing contracts for $800 M of cumulative revenues and acquired 7 smaller companies
Grew a division from $250 M to $360 M in revenues and from $11 M to $34 M in profits through internal growth and cost management. Identified over $40 M of profit improvements in the European operations
Associate & Senior Associate, 1982 1989, STRATEGIC PLANNING ASSOCIATES (now MERCER OLIVER WYMAN). Clients included GE, AXA (The Equitable), Sara Lee, Ameritech, Shell and Owens Corning.
Re-engineered insurance operations, optimized telecommunications network, changed customer selection/pricing, analyzed raider defense options and developed financial services portfolio strategy.
Education:
Wharton MBA with distinction (top 4%), 1982.
CPA (passed on first attempt)
Supplemental classes at Northwestern (Kellogg) and University of Chicago (4.0 GPA).
BA equivalent in Business Economics, University of Aarhus, Denmark, 1980.
Other:
Fluent in Scandinavian languages, basic knowledge of German and French. U.S. citizen.
Assignments in Europe and Latin America including working for Royal Dutch Shell in London, U.K. and Topkapi Sise San in Istanbul, Turkey. Contacts in Asia.
Willing to relocate
Summary of experience and achievements by role and industry:
I have extensive experience growing and improving performance of companies in many industries. Below is a summary of how many years I have been involved in different roles (often overlapping), the staff size I have managed, the profit improvements my teams identified and the scope of my M&A activities.
Consumer Products Mfg, Oil, Telecom Distribu- tion Printing Services, Paper Financial Services Total
Years of Experience by role
CFO / Division Finance 1 3 5 5 - 14
M&A / Bus. Dev. 2 0.5 5 8 - 15
Consulting 2.5 3 0.5 1.5 3 10
- Total 4 6 5 10 3 28
Max staff size 30+ 175 30 15 3
Operating Improvements ($M)
Sales/Mktg/Pricing 24 1 8 22 - 55
G&A 33 5 1 7 8 54
Supply Chain / Mfg. 59 20 2 82 20 183
- Total 116 26 11 111 28 292
M&A activity
# of acquisitions 3 1 11 8 - 23
# of divestitures 2 - 2 0 - 4
Deal value ($millions)2 1,650 3 60 50 - 1,763
Full resume available at: www.ASConsultingGroup.com
Chief Financial Officer / VP Finance / Management Advisor
I am a finance executive who is looking for the next challenge after completing a dramatic turnaround of a motorcycle parts manufacturer. My prior CFO roles and consulting experience have given me a broad functional skill base in a broad range of industries. The results include having my colleagues and me identify $160+ M in annual operating profit improvements and $100+ M in annual acquisition integration synergies, raise $100+ M of debt and equity financing, sign $800+ M in customer contracts and complete 20+ acquisitions with $1.7 B deal value.
My education includes a Wharton MBA (top 4%), University of Chicago classes (4.0 GPA) and a CPA
POWERSPORTS COMPANY, Viola and La Crosse, Wisconsin 2009 - Current
Powersports company is the leading manufacturer of performance products for American V-Twin motorcycles including selling complete engines to custom bike builders. The collapse of the custom bike market and the recession caused FY09 revenues to decline 34% and put the company into a turnaround situation. I joined as a consultant before taking the CFO / COO role. We reduced costs, found multiple sources of financing and pursued new growth opportunities resulting in a successfully turnaround. Powersports company is now larger than the year before the recession at much higher margins.
Chief Financial Officer / Chief Operating Officer
Responsible for managing finance, operations and major account sales functions including:
Managing all accounting / finance / IT functions running on an SAP system
Supervising precision machine shop manufacturing and warehousing operations
Directing supply chain activities including purchasing and production/inventory planning for over 5,000 active SKUs using over 15,000 components
Managing and personally involved with selling / maintaining major accounts
Achievements include: (with the help of other team members)
Successful turnaround based on cost reductions and finding new accounts
Grew revenue by 62% over last 3 years, all from new major account. Significant personal involvement in pricing, selling, negotiating and managing these new accounts
Reduced S,G&A by 31%. Kept S,G&A flat during revenue growth rebound. Net Income margins up 28 percentage points vs. FY09 and up 15 percentage points vs. FY08
Re-financed with new bank during economic crisis in Oct. 2008; negotiated four year attractive extension and refinanced term loan with another bank in 2011; maintained excellent communication with the lenders
Completed New Market Tax Credit and Community Development Block Grant loan financings
Streamlined audit process resulting in 50% audit fee reduction
Changing culture to being more proactive, positive and willing to challenging senior managers
Improved manufacturing productivity by reducing set-up times and increasing machine utilization
Reduced core business inventory 35% while improving in-stock percentage
Acquired majority of Crane Cams assets at liquidation auction
XYZ CONSULTANTS / ABC CONSULTING GROUP, Chicago, Illinois 2003 - 2009
Partner / Principal
Responsible for managing project teams and developing client recommendations. Achievements include:
As consultant to powersports company: Refinanced with new lender; identified cost savings in excess of 10% of revenue; developed revised strategic direction; became acting CFO
Performed diagnostics for several clients typically identifying 3 6% margin improvement opportunities. Did diagnostics and implementation for a number of Thomas H. Lee Partners sponsored companies
As interim Chief Financial Officer of $700 M Home & Garden division of Spectrum Brands: managed a group of 30 dedicated and 10 shared staff, while setting up division on separate financials; created product by customer profitability reports, set pricing targets for line reviews and divested the Canadian business segment.
Helped Spectrum Brands integrate two acquisitions that grew them from $700 M to $2.5 B and achieve over $100 M of operations improvements and synergies.
Assisted a $1 B consumer products company evaluate and price a $150 M revenue acquisition. We identified and verified $10 M of synergies.
Helped Kodaks Commercial Imaging Group develop its strategy resulting in Kodak buying out two joint venture partners (Heidelberg and Sun Chemical) for about $800 M and acquiring Creo for about $1 B.
Developed paper company strategy resulting in company proceeding with prioritized list of high return projects. Project involved site optimizations, analyzing pricing drivers and scenario planning.
Identified over $40 M of profit improvements for printing company by streamlining their order-to-cash process, optimizing their supply chain, reducing capacity and refocusing their sales effort.
PRINT DISTRIBUTOR, Chicago, Illinois 1998 2003
Print distributor was the fourth largest distributor of print and other office products and was named Distributor of the Year in 2003. We grew from no sales in 1998 to over $100 M primarily through 11 acquisitions and a number of smaller affiliate transactions. Print distributor was a Thoma Cressey Equity Partners sponsored company. The CEO knew me from my prior job at Moore Corporation.
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Responsible for managing the finance, accounting, information services and legal functions including:
Managing the accounting department with about 30 employees processing over 300,000 annual customer invoices and over 200,000 annual vendor invoices.
Reporting, analyzing and presenting financial results to internal management, board and lender. Equity sponsor considered us the model for reporting.
Ensuring financials meet GAAP and supervising legal, due diligence, tax and auditing external resources.
Due diligence, negotiation, closing and integration of all acquisitions and divestitures.
Preparing re-financing offering memorandum and private stock issue offering memorandum.
Dealing with customer issues, sales issues, employee issues and other operating issues as necessary.
Achievements include: (with the help of other team members)
Raised $60 M in debt and equity funding commitments.
Acquired 11 companies and brought more than 15 affiliates on board. External due diligence never found any additional adjustments. Divested one division, two print shops and three real estate properties.
Maintained EBITDA in a recession year following a 50% EBITDA growth year
On-going cost and margin improvements along with management restructuring.
Outperforming the industry and major competitors.
Developed high credibility with the lender enabling more flexibility and easier re-financing.
Redesigned commission program to motivate sales people and reflect contributions to the company.
Implemented the industry leading E-commerce offering and wide area network.
NATIONAL AUTO CREDIT INC., Cleveland, Ohio Five months in 1998
National Auto Credit was a major, public, sub-prime lender with over $400 M of auto loan receivables. I was hired by the chairman to help him turnaround the company. Immediate board and management changes, including the retirement of the chairman, and discovery of accounting irregularities made me quickly look for other opportunities. The actions I implemented were estimated to result in over $20 M of annual profit improvements.
Financial Advisor (hired as CFO)
Responsible for managing and improving the finance and accounting function including:
Managing the accounting and tax department with about 15 employees.
Correcting the external financial reporting and modifying accounting policies.
Developing internal financial measurements, reports and analyses.
Implementing a turnaround.
Achievements include:
Corrected the method for calculating the loan loss reserves resulting in an over $100 M reserve adjustment. Assisted Zolfo Cooper in understanding the business and improvement areas.
Revised the underwriting process to improve collectability. First payment defaults were immediately down six percentage points.
Calculated the profitability for each of nearly 3,000 dealers. Developed different action plans for different categories of dealers including targeting some dealers for further penetration and reducing the cash advances to other dealers. In addition, dealers accounting for 30% of the historical loan volume were eliminated from existing advance programs.
Developed a business plan to get lenders to agree to restructure the debt repayment.
MOORE CORPORATION LTD., Chicago and Toronto 1989 1998
(R.R. DONNELLEY)
Moore was a $2.6 B global leader in business forms, labels, real estate software, direct marketing and business mail outsourcing listed on the New York and Toronto exchanges. Moore is now part of R.R. Donnelley.
Vice President, Finance and Contract Management, ICS 1996 - 1998
The Integrated Customer Solutions (ICS) division managed $320 M of annual sales to 30 global customers and lead Moores outsourcing efforts.
Responsible for finance, administration and information services functions including:
Tracking and reporting the divisional and customer results.
Setting sales / profit targets by customer.
Working closely with the sales organization in evaluating, selling, pricing and negotiating any large deal opportunity.
Identifying ways to improve the profitability of the existing base business.
Achievements include:
Grew ICS accounts 25% faster than other Moore accounts.
Grew account profitability by over 60% in 1997 in an environment of declining margins for the operating divisions.
Profitable accounts and products were assigned more selling effort.
Financial Improvement Plans were developed for low or negative profitability accounts and products. These plans resulted in selectively increasing prices, reducing selling or manufacturing costs and in changing the mix to more profitable products.
Helped sell and negotiate over $800 M in outsourcing deals for business mail, business forms and commercial printing including a $300 M contract with Aetna and a $250 M contract with Royal Bank.
Director of Business Development, CCS 1992 - 1996
The Customer Communication Services (CCS) Group consists of three global businesses - direct marketing, business mail outsourcing and software development - with annual sales of $500 M.
Responsible for all staff functions (finance, mergers and acquisitions, marketing, strategy and planning) at the CCS Group level including:
Tracking divisional results and highlighting areas to examine closer.
Consolidating results and summarizing for corporate senior management.
Developing CCS Group budgets and prioritizing capital expenditures.
Creating financial and non-financial performance measurements.
Evaluating all internal growth and acquisition opportunities.
Requested by CFO to also assume responsibility for improving Moores corporate E-mail system. This included managing a staff of 11 to 17 people.
Requested by CEO to help develop the corporate strategic plan.
Achievements include:
Grew CCS North America from $250 M to $360 M while profits grew from $11 M to $34 M. This is twice the growth rate and nearly twice the margin of competitors.
Completed acquisitions of a document imaging company where we improved the margin by 10% in the second year and four software companies.
Helped sell and negotiate outsourcing deals for business mail and commercial printing.
Recommended and implemented a new corporate wide, global e-mail system. This involved installing Lotus Notes to 9,000+ users on 100+ servers, significantly upgrading the global WAN and creating Internet access - all within the original schedule. This significantly improved communication in the company.
Director of Corporate Development, Toronto, Canada 1989 - 1991
Responsible for Mergers and Acquisitions and special Operations Improvement projects including:
Analyzing a number of industries and companies to determine acquisition attractiveness, competitive position and management strengths and valuing each target company using cash flow models to set our maximum offer price.
Managing a 15-person project team that analyzed profitability improvement options for Moores European operations.
Analyzing cost economics of proprietary and commercial imaging & finishing technologies.
Achievements include:
Identified more than $40 M of annual profit improvement potential in Moores European operations. Recommendations were accepted by the board and initiated a restructuring program.
Completed two acquisitions. Including the six acquisitions made in my next positions, I completed eight of nine total acquisitions made by Moore during 1990 - 96.
STRATEGIC PLANNING ASSOCIATES, INC., Washington, DC 1982 - 1989
(MERCER MANAGEMENT CONSULTING, INC. / OLIVER WYMAN)
Strategic Planning Associates (SPA) was a top five general management consulting firm. The firm specialized in developing solutions to complex, data intensive problems and worked closely with clients to ensure implementation success. Mercer Management Consulting, Inc., (Marsh & McLennan), acquired SPA in 1991 and combined it with Oliver Wyman in 2003.
Associate, promoted to Senior Associate in 1984
Responsible for developing solutions and managing teams assigned to a project including:
Assignments in Corporate Finance, Business and Corporate Strategy Development, Financial Analysis and Operations Improvements
Assignments for a wide range of service and manufacturing industries including financial services, insurance, telecommunications, downstream oil, wholesale distribution, heavy machinery and building materials.
Achievements include:
Created P&Ls for product/market segments using Activity Based Costing analysis. The resulting changes in customer selection and pricing structure improved profit margins by over 5% or $8 M.
Developed recommendations during re-engineering project that identified operations and service improvements for insurance client resulting in 25% reduction in policy processing time, 10-15% reduction in back office costs and sharp reduction in agent complaints.
Recommended appropriate debt/equity levels causing client to stop share repurchase program.
Analyzed and modeled a variety of raider defense options (LBO, acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures and friendly investors) that fortunately did not have to get implemented as the stock price rose to reflect the true value of the client company.
Developed and modeled telecommunications network economics identifying large cost and investment savings. Client implemented recommendations immediately resulting in many millions of cost and capital savings.
Identified keys to success and determined competitive positions for each business for financial services client. Resulted in investments in key strategic businesses with non-strategic businesses sold or de-emphasized.
Estimated costs, profits and market positions of global clients U.S. and international competitors. Client restructured its US manufacturing plants rather than moving production overseas. Recommended proactive role in shaping industry consolidation to remain a leader.
EDUCATION:
MBA with Distinction (top 4%), Finance and Strategy, Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania, 1982
CPA (passed on first attempt)
MBA classes (Straight A grades) in Accounting, Auditing and Tax at University of Chicago, 1993
BA equivalent, Business Economics, University of Aarhus, Denmark, 1980
Negotiations Class and Moore management training program at the Kellogg School, Northwestern University, 1995 and 1996
OTHER:
Fluent in Scandinavian languages, basic knowledge of German and French. U.S. citizen.
Assignments in Europe and Latin America including working for Royal Dutch Shell in London, U.K. and Topkapi Sise San in Istanbul, Turkey. Contacts in Asia.
Willing to relocate |
