Kaplan Newcastle

St Anthonys Sixth Form

Finance Director at KGM Underwriting Services

DUAL has rapidly expanded in the UK to surpass £1bn GWP across 25+ product lines. With 500+ employees in the UK, we are trusted industry experts with specialist local underwriting knowledge and experience across a broad range of business lines. We are also part of one of the largest MGAs in the world, providing stability of coverage and local underwriting expertise, backed by a global network.

DUAL UK

Chief Financial Officer

Heading up the finance function for KGM Underwriting at an exciting time for the business!

KGM Underwriting Services Ltd

Finance Director

Key responsibilities

Towergate IBA lead for the delivery of the Finance Transformation Programme 

 Design and delivery of the Query Management and Underwriting Credit Control Target Operating Model

Development of IBA MI 

Bank reconciliation migration project addition 

IBA process reviews and associated business changes and improvements

Co-ordination of the IBA aspects of business systems consolidation

Management of CTC auto reconciliation continuous improvement

Towergate Insurance

Head of Finance Transformation (IBA Finance Operations)

I was asked to take this role to improve process effectiveness of programme and BAU to reduce overdue debt to strategic insurer partners following the significant change in the finance operations, and improve relationships to support long term relationships and investment

Having highlighted weaknesses in end to end process driving the poor operational financial performance and identified opportunities for improvement this led to the role of interim Head of IBA 

Key achievements:
 - Led the collective consultation for 65 FTE to reduce operational finance FTE by 33%
 - Stabilised workforce with significant reduction in voluntary leavers 
 - Reduced unallocated cash by 50%
 - Improved overdue creditor position by 30%


Overview 

Heading up the IBA function for the Distribution division of Towergate (100FTE), ensuring effective and efficient end to end processing for 'Sales to Insurer Paid' finance to maximise payments to Insurers and cash into the business throughout a period of significant chance including automation, offshoring and robotics. 

Strategic responsibilities:

Leading implementation of Finance Transformation across the IBA function reducing FTE through automation (including RPA) and offshoring 

Managing key strategic insurer relationships and effective resolution of debt

Ownership of MI reporting and drive automation of reporting into self serve environment

Ensure a seamless link between finance transformation solutions and day to day operations to maximise benefits and minimise delivery risk 

Tactical objectives:

Maximise payments to insurer through prioritisation of query resolution resource and effective query management until FTP delivers the solution to embed the strategic Target Operating Model 

Motivate and support teams who are under notice of redundancy to maximise productivity and process effectiveness throughout the end to end process and maintain high performance

Head of Insurance Relationships and Interim Head of IBA (Finance Operations)

Reporting to the CFO of Insurance Broking and partnering the Retail CEO and Exec team this role involved:

Managing a team of FBPs performing commercial finance analysis and support including 
 - Budgeting, forecasting (weekly, monthly and quarterly), product profitability analysis, businesses case / contract tender analysis

Monthly reporting to Retail Exec and group Finance Exec

Cost base optimisation through tactical and strategic change

Driving reduction in aged debt and improved working capital flow

Implementing new MI and reporting

Finance Director | Retail

Head of FP&A for NetNames, offering Domain Name portfolio management and Brand Protection for clients ranging from large corporates to individuals through a range of product types across the UK, US, Europe, Singapore and Australia. 

A member of the SLT, and reporting to the CFO, my key objectives in this role were:

To create a centralised FP&A function which developed and implemented new processes for budgeting, management reporting, board reporting and forecasting, of both costs and sales, and revenue.

Improve quality, accuracy and timeliness of management reporting.

Produce timely, accurate and useful forecast data.

Drive efficiencies through the operational processes in finance to maximise analytical and commercial output.

Build and maintain a highly proficient, commercial and self-sufficient FP&A team, capable of delivering the quality of outputs required by the various stakeholders, including CFO, other execs and the Board, as well as operational senior management.

I led the successful centralisation of the management accounting activity from Denmark and Paris to the UK, creating and developing processes which are lean and efficient, and a team that is highly capable and able to deliver timely and accurate results, as well as quality analysis. 

The team became future focused and increased the commercial value of the outputs, maximising the strategic value of the FP&A activity.

NetNames

Head of FP&A

Played a key role in recruitment, retention, training and development of a team of 20 project analysts (7 direct), managing as a group over 200 live projects covering all aspects of project finance, c£800m in revenue (UK owned contracts only). 

Key focus on long term contract revenue accounting on % complete basis, optimising contract revenue and margin through the development of a deep understanding of project operations and insightful analytical tools. 

Responsible for maintaining relarionships with project teams and senior commercial and finance stakeholders at pharma and biotech companies.

Trained the team and developed tools to significantly improve regional and global revenue forecasting on a contract level across the portfolio of long term contracts, ensuring that the analysts delivered on that forecast appropriately. 

Increased the quality of financial analysis across the portfolio through achieving a better understanding of contracts and operations at the analyst level, delivering more commercially focused analysis to assist with ongoing management of the studies, and identification of risks and revenue opportunities. 

Led regular project reviews to identify, understand and proactively manage risks, and to ensure the financial integrity of the studies. 

Assisted with the development and roll out of key systems I.e. new core forecasting system, ensuring buy in from the analyst team and operational teams. 

Reviewed contract amendments for financial and commercial implications, and from a pricing perspective.

PRA Health Sciences

Senior Manager, Business Operations Finance

Manager of UK based Fixed Cost and PTP teams and outsourced PTP function in India.

The PTP team consisted of 1 UK based AP clerk, and a temp during the implementation of SAP, in addition to a team of 10 processing clerks based in Chennai. 

The UK fixed cost team included 1 part time, qualified accountant, 1 graduate trainee and 1 undergrad placement student, managing a costs base of c EUR 250m, including sales and marketing, publicity, IT, HR, finance etc. 

The role involved:
 - the supervision of monthly group reporting and consolidating
 - detailed cost centre manager reporting and processes
 - variance analysis
- Board reporting
- managing the budget process (including headcount) 
 - re-design of the cost centre hierarchy document
 - implementation of SAP for fixed costs, and management of processes and reporting with the cost centre owners

Subsequently more involved in transition to SAP, including review of training materials and training of outsourced team in India, management of post go live PTP issues in the UK PTP function and outsourced team issues and performance.

AkzoNobel

PTP and Fixed Costs Manager

Worked in Audit for PwC Newcastle until Nov 2007 and PwC Reading until June 2009 performing controls based audits. 

Mainly focussed on middle market clients but also pension, charities and some plc clients.

Heavily involved in training and development of new graduates.

Julie Adams-Moore