STARWOOD VACATION OWNERSHIP, Orlando, FL 2007-2009
(Subsidiary of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, one of the world's largest hotel and leisure companies, with yearly timeshare sales of $500M and 4,300 vacation ownership employees)
Director of Finance, International Sales & Marketing
Recruited by VP of Sales and Marketing finance to create new department and to facilitate the international expansion while leading the financial planning and analysis functions, including: monthly close, forecasting, annual planning, and strategic 3-year planning processes. Yearly timeshare sales of the department were nearly $100M.
• Established financial and payroll procedures; put in place controls for handling cash and non cash instruments; and reviewed legal agreements for the first Starwood Timeshare Resort in Mexico
• Evaluated restructuring scenarios and advised on over $10M of cost containment and resources optimization to recover profit margins for the Mexico group
• Revised and optimized intercompany agreements and flow of resources between US and Mexican entities
• Developed the first interactive financial analysis model that performs sensitivity analyses and determine profitability of potential timeshare projects, which led to better decisions on a $120M timeshare project
• Supervised the preparation of financial statements for 2 international legal entities
• Managed 3 direct reports and 2 indirect reports
DELTA AIR LINES, Atlanta, GA 2001-2007
(Major air carrier with yearly revenues of $15B and 60,000 employees- before merger with Northwest)
Finance Manager
Consolidated the monthly close process and operating budgets for International & Alliances during 2002 and 2003, with revenues of $2.5B. Managed the monthly close process and developed operating and capital budgets for Air Logistics (cargo) during 2004 and 2005, with revenues of $500M. Facilitated part of the Bankruptcy process during 2006 and 2007.
• Worked in the merger of Cargo operations with Airport Customer Service (ACS) to reduce costs by taking advantage of synergies and eliminating duplicity in ramp and administrative functions. Led the finance side of this restructuring, including budget transfers, redistribution of cost/profit centers and realignment of personnel
• Participated in the creation of Best Practices Models for International Stations, reducing expenses by $3.3M
• Created recovery programs based on market analysis and reschedules, which returned to profitability 2 Latin America flights that were losing $1M/month
• Collaborated from filing to emergence in bankruptcy process (Chapter 11) of 19 legal entities with $15B in unsecured claims by negotiating requests, integrating information and responding to questions from advisors to the creditors’ committees
• Saved the company $1M in professional fees by taking the role of consultant and serving as facilitator to compile and validate financial information and Schedules submitted to the Bankruptcy Court
• Led a module of the 2005 Strategy Review of the airline, managing consultants and internal teams
• Achieved top ranking in the company’s 2006 year end review, given only to top 10%
EDUCATION
MBA, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, NY, 2001
Summer internship at Delta Air Lines, 2000
BS, Mechanical Engineering and Management, ITESM, Monterrey, Mexico
OTHER
Fluent in Spanish, proficient in Italian, professionally vocally trained in opera, open to relocate |
