Competencies
Welcome to the fractional CFO, interim COO, CEO competency page. Please scroll down to review the skills that I have acquired and continue to develop in each of the 4 functions of Leadership, Strategy, Finance and Operations.
It represents my know-how and what I am capable to deliver specifically to your organization along with a short description and key words to illustrate the context for taking action.
> Strategy | Finance | Operations
Leadership
Articulate and share a Vision:
The fervent promoter of the Goal. Skilled in articulating and being the vision for the people. Be, do, say the future, only the future. #beTheFuture
Detail Driven:
Ability to drill down to shop floor levels and be comfortable in having a relatable dialogue with the personnel on the ground who is coding, packing, delivering, making etc...day in and day out. #detailDiver
Vision Enabler:
Navigate with confidence board level / strategic vision conversations and project in the future, observe and research trends, identify strengths, weaknesses & opportunities #vision #curiosity
Wisdom:
Align key stakeholders around the Stephen Covey's approach: the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Trained in enrolling and receiving the listening and engagement of the key stakeholders with candid, sensitive, truth-seeking exchanges that are trust and consistency building. #focus
Confidence:
More than 20 years of experience in addressing a wide range of business, personnel and life challenges, resolving problems and delivering solutions in situations and markets where the constraints are at the utmost level of complexity. #determination
Truth Seeker:
Passionate in finding the common denominator, away from personal beliefs and ego-based conclusions. Driven to keep away the "Iceberg of Ignorance" syndrome, leading to increased employee and key stakeholder engagement, promoting dialogue and transparency. #no_bias
Humility:
An adept of "We have the answers, all of the answers, it is the questions we do not know." I practice a leadership and management by questions, opposed to managing with statements and threats. #humility
Machine:
Understanding organizations and companies as machine with interconnected components and systems. Engaging structures with the appreciation of inter-operability of people, culture, systems, tools, processes, policies, decisions, and outcomes. #rayDalio #transparency
Numbers:
I understand the numbers as a CFO and know intimately the mechanics of finance, accounting, operations management in a diverse wide array of industries. #thenumbersguy
Crisis:
Ability to engage with organizational PTSD arising from abusive management and/or leadership. Stabilize, heal, repair, learn, grow. #compassion
Resilience:
Native skill. Character trait from life experiences. #resilient
Strategy
Inspire:
Direct and support sessions for creating a Jim Collins' BHAG. 10/15 years from now, what's happening? #goal #BHAG #jimCollins
One phrase:
We will work on getting to the one activity, one thing, that makes the organization money. It will be stated in one phrase or statement. It is so simple everyone in the company understands it and know that, by this thing happening, the company makes money. #strategy #verneHarnish #scalingUp
Catalyst:
We will drive brainstorming sessions to come up with mechanisms that increase exponentially the pace at which the organization is traveling towards its goal, the Jim Collins' BHAG. #catalyticMechanisms #jimCollins
Promise:
I will work with your key stakeholders in setting 3 promises made to your customers that will cost the organization when broken. This is one of the differentiators with your competitors. #market_dominance
Core Values:
One of the most confused and misunderstood concepts in business strategy pillars. One of my core competencies is to help you find the 3 core values by which people behave and decision making is driven. Core values are not aspirational values nor permission to play values. #coreValues
Principles:
We will develop a set of 5 to 10 principles that guide the boundaries of discussions, decisions, behaviors, and serve as context for execution. They can be coming from lessons learned after painful mistakes. #rayDalio #principles
SWOTrend:
A key to stay ahead is to constantly enquire, learn, read, observe what the market does, the clients, the competitors, and vendors. Fousing here on TRENDS and not so much on threats. It guides the tweaking of the strategic plan. #SWOT_Trend
Goal cascading:
Multiyear expertise in working with the teams and stakeholder on cascading the goal into s.m.a.r.t. objectives to teams and individuals. Derive performance scenarios and timelines for milestones and achievements. #alignment
Top3Top5: Top 3 KPIs Top 5 Priorities for all the key stakeholders. This works hand in hand with Goal Cascading, accompanied by key leading and lagging indicators. We set this up for monitoring performance, and accountability. #performance #accountability
Start/Stop/Keep:
We will set up a survey system, for which the Start/Stop/Keep process will make obvious areas and actions that will benefit the organization, currently frustrates personnel, or keep people engage with the business. #alignment #ideas
Leading & Lagging
Applying here Management Control principles where most leading indicators fluctuate with non-accounting data feeds. This process takes a few weeks to set up as the need to dive into the day2day operations and looking at process steps will locate the opportunities for leading KPIs to be installed. Key leading indicators can be sourced from sales pipelines and procurement data feeds as well as recurring fixed costs, revenues, adjustments data feeds, pricing, forex and any live data streams impacting revenues, costs, financing, inventories, capex, debt equity etc... #KPIs
Business Scorecard:
All of the above needs to be one document on a single page.We build a summary for organization consumption and a detail scorecard for the C level and key stakeholders. #verneHarnish'sOPSP #balancedScorecard
Stakeholder's Scorecard:
This is the scorecard for each of the key stakeholders listing the areas they are responsible for in the financial statements, with smart objectives, specific KPIs and the levels at which the KPIs need to be, along with projects and priorities that are worked on during the year. #verneHarnish'sOPPP
Productize service:
Service productization is critical in its correlation with the value prop/the problems the organization is trying to solve. Recurring revenue opportunities and pricing strategies are herein defined, and it is a key component of your strategy that I will support in making it align with the financial and operations strategy plans. #theHow
Finance
Bookkeeping:
One of my pet peeves in accounting. Studying accounting & finance, I started my career with bookkeeping in the AP department of oil & gas Co. SAFETY KLEEN. Bookkeeping is the most important, underrated activity in accounting. You can have all the AI, DATARAILS products and other POWERBI apps installed, if your financial data is carried via unvetted processes and does not have accurate metadata (date, description, dimensions, distribution) and flows with mediocre OCRs and missed/undocumented accruals, it will be all garbage in/garbage out. Though if you adopt ML (machine learning), you could possibly have an ML engine be trained to recon automatically unstructured data to structured data. Yet this is not readily available and would need specialized implementation. Until then, from not making sense COAs to trial balances that cannot be supported, this is an area, that will shut down your M&A process once your LOI is signed. Get it in order, Get the numbers right. #gettingYourNumbersRight #merger&acquisition
Accounting, Account Consolidations:
Core knowledge developed over two decades of working in the field and setting up accounting systems dozens of times or repairing such systems. GAAP, IFRS, multi-currency/division/country/profit-center consolidations, short & long IFRS depreciations methods and so on are some of the areas of accounting I have expertise in, along with the accounting of automotive/truck dealerships, asset lifecycle services, SaaS, Retail, Hospitality, etc... Call me if you need support and management on your AP, AR, GL, EOM, Cash Recons, CapEx/OpEx. #accounting #multiCurrency #managerialAccounting #consolidation
FP&A, Business Intelligence:
Studying management control and applying it via two decades of experience, I have been honing budgeting, forecasting and modeling skills for a wide range of businesses in multiple sectors. Analysis can only have value when the cause/effect is identified and understood. The root cause analysis and work must be done for the analysis to carry value and prompt the decision-making process. Adopting key leading indicators, dynamic forecasting is labor intensive but essential to keep in real time the pulse on the business. The fractional engagement I provide help with great success achieve at a minimal cost the piloting of your business. #managementControl #keyLeadingIndicators
Tax:
You should always refer to your CPA of choice to vet your tax strategy. However, engaging with a tax specialist yields far greater value. For having dealt with very complex tax strategies in the US and overseas, I offer support in asking the questions that matters so you can obtain the advice you need. Most often CPAs look at your business from a high level, and in multi-country/international setups there are plenty to enquire about with respect to tax, compliance, international treaties and accords. With respect to state taxes and VAT I have extensive experience with Payroll and Sales Tax as well as VAT in Europe and their correlated audits.
#internationalTaxStrategy #salesTax #941s #NYS45 #VAT #article23
Management Control:
Management control is a financial management framework that is rarely understood and applied. If you are on time, you are already too late; you have to be within time or in time to maintain a leading position. The study of the variations between measurable and quantifiable objectives and results is often crossed with FP&A activities, though management control implements financial information outside of traditional accounting processes, using data streams that are upstream from Finance. Management control is the science behind installing sensor like mechanisms in the key areas of your business similar to a Formula 1 car or an Airplane. Businesses are no different, and I will study your operations and back-office activities and identify what, where & how the sensors should be created and implemented. The challenge is to be concise and focused as the tendency is to track everything which yields to nothing. It has to connect with your One Phrase Strategy, Goal and profit multiplier.
#inTimeManagement #proactive
Cash collections & forecast:
Forecasting cash is a must and building a 3-statement forecast always gives insights & context while multiple sensitivities in the balance sheet are usually outside of our control and stays an exercise of influence more than anything. One of the most underused financial statements is the indirect method of cash flow statement which provides key variations in the 3 key cash sections of the business. Let's get this cash under control and assigned to growth rather than waste. Secondly, let's look at debt recovery and AR collections; is it a recurring problem? who owes? why does it repeat? It is utterly important to have specialists doing the AR collections consistently and separating from accounts that cannot pay. #cash #cashForecast #collections #debtRecovery
Inventory:
This is a core competency I developed at the onset of my career with the coding of an app for rare and high-cost raw materials and honed when managing and launching fine dining operations for celebrity chefs as well as managing millions of parts for wireless telecom networks in emerging markets. I am looking forward to supporting your organization with its inventory demands and challenges. #inventory #workingCapital #valuation
Risk and Insurance:
When it comes to mitigate losses, speaking to the leading underwriters in the business is crucial for having insurance programs that deliver value when it comes to unexpected losses. Over the last 15 years I have engaged brokers and retained for clients the policies that offered the most protection. Credit insurance and currency exposure mitigation are included in this core competency and its scope. #forex #D&O #businessLiability
Transfer pricing, OFAC, FBAR & CFCs:
When crossing borders and having multiple locations around the globes, transfer pricing agreement will need to be in place and registered with local tax authorities as each country have specific rates for which, a related entity can charge a cost to its sister co or subsidiary. Moreover, some transactions might attract OFAC compliance for which enforcement is very strict and repercussions very costly. FBARs must be filed diligently and passive income from CFCs are always something of a topic. Corp Tax paid overseas are most of the time Federal tax credits to repatriate and dividends declarations are always steps and processes that require oversight, so no compliance is left behind. All of this, for having it done many times over, are topics I can manage on your behalf or with you, should you want support while you are focusing on other critical areas of your operations. #transferPricing #CFC #FBAR #OFAC #offshore #dividends
Repair:
Over the last 20 years, I have unfortunately seen my fair share of accounting nightmares with bookkeeping errors in every other transaction leading to a) reconciliations becoming impossible, b) complete distrust of the financial statements. Repair of accounting & finance systems is one of my core competencies. Don't delay, the sooner it is fixed the faster you can resume to think strategically, correct the outcomes of bad financials and get back on track with planning a transformation leading to growth. Let's get this done! #accounting #repair #numbersIntegrity #financialStatements #M&A
Controls:
With most cross functional workflows, controls must be set in place to protect resources, apply compliance and keep the machine operate within the legal landscape. Registration of customers, vendors, employees along with all other contributors to the organization is key and often overlooked. Especially in today's constant breach of cloud and email systems, banking related fraud have increased exponentially. Controls on registrations, procurement, bank info registrations and changes, vendor payments, expenses reimbursements, payroll and so on are critical. Regardless of stagnant revenues or growth, controls must be put in place and their seamless operations is a must. Controls cannot become an impairment to velocity and must seek maximum buy to avoid work arounds to take root.
#segregationOfDuties #controls #fraud #lossPrevention
Audits:
I have deep experience in managing reviews & audits, documenting processes, procedures, legal claims and organizational structures as well as documenting all key balance sheet accounts, contracts, CapEx purchases, prepaid contracts and fees. In addition to internal audits, I have experience with managing State audits of Sales Tax, IFTA, Income and Payroll taxes and returns. Having records organized and financial statements reconciled with all support documents readily available make audit go faster and allows for the eliminations of tax assessments that all too familiar with Agency, State and Federal audits. Sales Tax audits can be financially brutal, and the time sink it creates the stress it causes and the potential financial burden it can represent. With a minimal cost, I can review the sales tax process and implement tests State auditors will take on. Be prepared, not scared. #audit #salesTax #Penalties #incomeTax #payrollTax
Implementation:
ERP implementation going awry can put a business out of business. For having rolled out ERP and software applications, getting the correct advice is key. ERPs are a success when you do the homework and do the homework with a wide range of advisors. In today's fractional world for a few thousands of dollars, you can conduct calls and prepare diligently the questions to ask and take the time first to find out what the answers that you are looking for. The business discovery phase is key, and I am a fervent supporter of doing the business discovery prior to signing off with a provider. The business discovery is essentially the blueprinting of your entire organization focusing first on the top 10 processes and workflows in the organization, then diving into the other functional and cross-functional workflows. Blueprinting your organization prepares for a sound ERP start, creating a valuable foundation for exchanging with the engineering and implementation teams. #ERP #rollout #implementation
Operations
Customer facing:
With years in the hospitality, I am proficient in addressing customer demands, needs and solving problems from a wide range of support issues. I repaired organizations by optimizing costs and increasing revenues with new streams of products and or services. I have identified leads, qualified and closed won opportunities. #sales #revenues #closedWon #leadQualification
Store/branch operations:
I have expertise in launching, managing branch and store operations, with planning the day2day and keeping the teams engaged on the ground. I have rolled out operations in the US, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Indonesia. #storeOperations #emergingMarkets #overseas
Resource planning:
Strong experience in programming flows of merchandise, raw materials and personnel across business functions and continents. #rollout #planning
Sales pipeline:
Strong ability to manage deals pipeline, setup sales gating and qualifying leads in B2B and B2C. #pipeline #leads #qualification
Recruiting:
A fervent user of the Top Grading methodology. #topgrading #CHR
Blueprinting:
Expert skills in documenting and optimizing processes and flows across all functions and all levels of operations for the purpose of LEAN or ERP implementation. #LEAN #ERP #process #performance #crossfunctional
Procurement:
Setting up procurement controls, price books, product specifications and profiles is a long and tedious work that I can manage on a fractional basis to develop the procurement function along with its tools for creating purchase orders and submitting them to a comprehensive validation workflow. #procurement #controls #validation #upstreamData
Cost reductions:
Inherently a finance professional and executive, I have returned dozens of organizations to profitability and have expert level experience in addressing cost reductions without chopping the business in pieces. At the operations level it is studying what is making a difference in bringing value to the customer and how the process is performing and if it can be executed with less errors and/or in less time. It is also addressing the theory of bottlenecks and constraints in production lines and repair shops and other production/manufacturing environments. #process #productivity #efficiency #maintenance #security #realestate #tools #equipment #safety
Repair & maintenance:
I have managed hands on and built many facilities from the ground up. I have a deep knowledge in facility maintenance as well as vehicle/fleet management.
#HVAC #automotive #facility #maintenanceContracts #construction
LEAN management:
LEAN is a constant concern and work for which it becomes embedded into the minds of all stakeholders. LEAN is a culture, a way of thinking and where the search for value, performance in all the processes, workflows never stop. I have implemented LEAN principles in warehousing in which the activities of storing, picking, packing and shipping as well as receiving and checking are the object of multiple analysis with the speed at which products are scanned, shelved, located in the warehouse. While LEAN is an organization wide endeavor, LEAN in accounting and finance can be implemented in AP and AR as these functions are highly transactional and their repercussions on cash are immediate. Creating seamless customer engagements with AR collections and customer payment processing as well as setting up portals where statements can be viewed, downloaded and items disputed, brings clarity and efficiency to the process. The same is true for vendors where visualizing statements of accounts, validations statuses, submission for payments and advance notice of vendor payments decreases considerably email traffic, email follow-up and any type of escalations; high email traffic forces people to responds, detracts AR and AP personnel from their priorities, and entice them to work from their inbox. #efficiency #value #productivity #importantUrgent #nonImportantUrgent
Warehousing:
I have deep expertise in rolling out and managing the launch of warehouses of technology items in the wireless network telecom sector where repair, warranty, rollout hardware is constantly processed. Safety, loss prevention and item preservation are some of the areas I have managed hands-on in warehousing.
#technical-warehousing
International logistics:
I worked closely with Sales Operations and vetted international shipping plans and execution of multimillion dollar hardware equipment across continents via air and sea. I have expertise with international shipments to and from emerging markets where constraints, regulations are cumbersome, and risks of loss are very high. #CO #BOL #COC #intertekInspection #commercialInvoice #packingList
Inventory management:
Inventory management is a core competency I have developed early on in my career and honed over decades of working in different industries. Taking control of the ordering, receiving, prepping, shelving, identification nomenclature as well as the pick/pack/ship activities is essential along with an inventory management platform that conforms to the speed requirements of the floor activities along with the integrations of the sales orders processing and invoicing activities. I have expertise in managing raw and perishable inventories of goods as well as IT/Telecom hardware with different serializations and part number formats. #inventory #perpertual #FIFO #partValuation
Capabilities & competencies:
To remain ahead of the competition the focus is not so much on the WHAT but on the HOW. Obviously if what you deliver is solving a problem that no-one else know how to address, the WHAT makes the business until someone else does it and the HOW becomes the differentiator. To the COO it means she/he has to look at developing new capabilities and competencies and be ready at a moment's notice to launch the implementation of such plans. This connects with the strategic activity of SWOTrend, where identifying and keeping a pulse at all times on the market and its peripherical view is a must. When adopting LEAN, this is an activity that is occurring inherently.
#swot #trend #LEAN #strategy #proactive #marketIntelligence
biography