The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India

St. Xavier's College (Autonomous), Kolkata

Head of Finance at Udaan.com  -  Ex-P&G  - 
I deliver business results driven by strong work ethics.

Building Finance ecosystem for Blinkit that translates into new customer & shareholder love everyday.

Blinkit

Vice President Finance

Amazon

Head of Finance - Fashion & Beauty

As Business Finance Controller for Udaan's Essentials Business (biggest BU of India's largest & fastest growing company in B2B e-commerce ecosystem), I'm responsible for spearheading the key business finance verticals including Commercial Finance, Central FP&A, Go-To-Market Finance & Financial controls with a clear accountability of partnering and collaborating with key business functions in driving strategic initiatives towards profitable growth & free cash flow generation via revenue enhancement, margin expansion, opex reduction, mitigation of losses & leakage, driving Working Capital efficiencies, Annual Operating Planning, internal / external Business Intelligence thru Data Science & Insights & Strengthening Controls; thereby building Udaan for Bharat & IPO readiness.

udaan.com

Head of Commercial Finance/Business Finance Controller - National Foods/FMCG/Pharma

As National Head of Sourcing Finance for Foods (biggest business vertical), established the first ever Sourcing Finance function in Udaan with close collaboration & partnership with the Foods Sourcing & Category Team. Built this function & its team bottoms-up; laying down the KRAs, establishing systems & processes, building new set of inter-functional engagements between Sourcing-Sales-GTM, and defining key financial controls for Sourcing ecosystem. 
We led delivery of key Sourcing objectives of category growth with margin expansion & offering the right assortment to our buyers at best price, right quality & optimal service; through strong business partnering and financial planning & analysis.

Head of Sourcing Finance - National Foods

Anchored from Finance - Udaan's ambitious expansion of Foods business in West & East regions. Was mandated with end-to-end responsibility & accountability for Business Finance, processes & controls for this massive growth which saw multi-index growth in revenue, multiple market / city operations, 3X buyer acquisition, large # of JBPs & ToTs with vendors/mills, new supply network designs; along with gross margin expansion - all within 6 months alongside building the Finance org. for both the regions.

Head of Business Finance - Food (West & East)

BIZONGO is India's #1 multi-category packaging platform. Bizongo's mission is to use technology to help businesses design, produce and source - reliable, responsible, sustainable and smart packaging. 

As Director of Finance, I head Corporate Finance, Business Finance [FP&A] & Bizongo Financial Services.

Bizongo

Director of Finance

Beauty sector is one of the largest business sector in P&G APAC. Effective 1st April 2017 I
am leading Business strategy & Supply Chain Finance for APAC Beauty sector – Hair, Skin & Personal Care business (~USD1.2Bn sales).
• Key responsibilities include business strategy development, portfolio management, internal controls, competitive intelligence & overall financial planning. The scope includes strategic business plans for APAC and influencing the same for Global Hair Care.
• On supply chain, I am responsible for cost, inventory & capital commitments of the business unit; directly enabling bottom-line & free cash flow. It also includes supply network design/re-platforming & facilitating profitable innovation thru cost effective product/packaging & design changes.
• Delivered $60MM of cost savings (~7% of total COPS - biggest contributor to bottom-line); 10% reduction in inventory days on hand; $5MM of complexity savings & 3 years growth master-plan.
• Led strategy, in partnership with multifunctional leadership team, for profitable topline growth by driving superiority on product, packaging, communication and go-to-market. Best ever year-to-date topline growth in 5 years for P&G APAC Hair Care @+5%
• Leading an organization of senior product supply finance analysts based out of four locations - Singapore HQ, Indonesia (Karawang), Thailand (Bangkok) & Philippines (Cabuyao). Leading ‘Inspire Me’ committee – a flagship organization building program: ‘We inspire each other to go to work daily’
• Leading special value creation projects (i) Project HEMAT for Indonesia business to drive productivity across spend pools (brand communication, pricing, COPS, promotion spends) to ensure ‘margin-accretive’ growth in a highly competitive & commoditized market (ii) Artwork transformation project for the sector aimed at ‘better, faster & affordable’ artworks through an automated-simplified work process and seamless collaboration with design agencies and printers/suppliers.

Procter & Gamble

Head of  Business Planning & Supply Chain Finance

I led commercial finance for Hair Care business, across 11 markets: ANZ, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore & rest of ASEAN (~$500 million business). I was also the Finance lead for all regional business building projects.
•	Key areas of responsibility & delivery:
-	P&L delivery (sales and profit): Responsible to deliver sales and profit targets. Led critical initiatives across markets like sachet landscape & pricing change in Philippines, competitive response planning for Pantene ‘3-minute miracle’, parallel import defense plan for Singapore, Herbal Essences re-growth plan in Australia; resulting in share and sales growth (7 points) for Hair Care in APAC after a consecutive decline of 3 years.
-	Strategic Revenue Management (SRM): Led ‘Project X-Men’ – initiative to grow $ sales ahead of volume, via competitive SRM analysis. The project involved identifying ‘high $ SKUs with potential to grow’ and developing a go-to-market program to drive these SKUs in market (resulted in ~$13 million incremental sales).    
-	Pricing & Promotion strategy management: Responsibility to ensure business is in adherence to pricing and promotion strategy. Led breakthrough initiative with multi-functional team on defining a winning pricing & promotion strategy delivering portfolio role for each market of APAC. Delivered $10MM of pricing plans for the business.
-	Competitive Intelligence: Led communications with management on competitive updates. Pioneered deep dive understanding of growth strategy of key competitor and developed action plan for P&G.
-	Internal controls: Led internal control assessment for APAC Hair commercial operations and ensured ‘strong & implemented’ controls and processes, resulting in highest auditing score awarded by P&G internal audit department.

Head of Business Finance - Full P&L delivery

I led Supply Chain Finance responsible for ~$350 million supply chain cost spread over a network of 13 markets, 3 plants & 4 contractors. I was responsible for owning supply chain financials and enabling business’s bottom line via cost savings. 
•	Key areas of responsibility & delivery:
-	Cost savings: Led cost savings program through loss driver analysis and rigorous ‘barrier-busting’ sessions with multi-functional teams, delivering highest cost savings globally across P&G for 2 consecutive years (~$75MM) 
-	Cost analysis: Led breakthrough analysis – internal benchmarking vs. other P&G regions and external benchmarking vs. competition, identifying & delivering ~$40MM cost opportunities. Recognized as ‘best-in-class’ analysis by management.
-	Supply network design: Led financial/cost planning for establishing a localized supply chain network and plant in Indonesia, developing ‘what-should-be-cost-design’, with a detailed glide-path on ‘how-to-deliver’ the cost design targets.
-	Financial Planning: Led annual budgeting, monthly forecasting and monthly actuals analysis of entire COPS. Developed 3-year cost savings master-plan (~$90 million) enabling re-investment into brand-building.
-	Internal controls: Led internal control assessment for APAC Hair supply chain also and ensured ‘strong & implemented’ controls and processes, resulting in highest auditing score with zero issues identified by P&G internal audit department.

Senior Manager - Supply Chain Finance

Pantene and H&S together accounts for ~USD 2.5 billion business for P&G Hair Care in Asia. I led the innovation design finance for these brands for entire Asia, gaining diverse understanding of consumers across APAC and China.
•	Key areas of responsibility & delivery:
-	Innovation financial analysis: Led financial modelling and analysis for 5 innovation initiatives, with positive NPVs and accretive margins. Key role in designing the scope of the initiative, go-to-market strategies and value-based pricing.
-	Business model re-invention: Led business model analysis, with strategic, commercial & financial interventions to turnaround a loss-making arm of the brand into a sustainable profitable business, delivering 20% yearly growth. Key interventions included fixing trial & display vehicles, driving cost efficiencies & competitive pricing.

Senior Analyst - FP&A (Brand Growth)

Approximately 75% of P&G India sales are through distributor network. I led Distributor sales finance, responsible for ~45% of business (~USD 600 million sales). I was responsible for joint business planning & “Profitable Go-To-Market” strategy.
•	Key areas of responsibility & delivery:
-	Financial Planning: Led annual budgeting and profitability analysis, defining financial targets (sales and cost) for distributors to enable a financially viable distribution model. Delivered yearly 25% reduction in ‘cost of distribution’.
-	Distributor channel financing: Developed alternate channel financing program for P&G and its distributors with HDFC bank; offering lower interest rate, improvement in AR via improved collection & MIS reporting for all distributors. 
-	Distributor risk management: Led breakthrough analysis of distributors’ financial statements, identifying and developing action plan (re-investment program) for highly leveraged distributors, in partnership with banking partners.
-	Distributor stewardship: Developed standard ‘distributor internal controls assessment’ process and successfully led pilot implementation with defined action plan for remediation, eventually conducted for all distributors across India.
-	Distributor capability: Led distributor organization capability building by innovating a scorecard based reward program [Project UMANG] and conducting monthly concept training sessions [Project UNNATI].

Sailesh Saraf