SUMMARY:

• Highly qualified and results - driven senior finance executive with an extensive strategic and operational financial leadership background with leading global and national organizations.
• Accomplished Chartered Public Accountant with MBA endorsed by over twenty years of extensive experience in regional finance roles within Europe, North America and Latin America.
• Progressive experience in audit, financial planning and analysis, fixed assets, accounting, purchasing, accounts receivable, accounts payable, treasury, taxes, profitability analysis and capital planning, including operating and capital budget management.
• Extraordinary SAP ECC and S/4HANA functional, technical and operational hands-on experience reinforced by more than 20 years of direct involvement in worldwide implementations.
• Instrumental in the establishment of Financial Shared Services Centers: vision, strategy, inception, business case, proposal, ramp up, transition, ongoing operation and support.
• Proven record in the establishment, operation, management, streamlining and optimization of Centers of Excellence for the delivery of high quality and efficient business services in the areas of Global Order-To-Cash ( Confidential ), Procure-To-Pay (PTP), Record-To-Report (RTR) and Tax Compliance.
• Unparalleled knowledge of business practices, regulations and culture in Latin America.
• Strong ability in business process improvement, redesign and re-engineering.
• Highly familiar with accounting policies, directives and procedures.

SKILL:

Languages: Spanish (native), English (fluent) and Portuguese (very good).

SAP ECC and S/4HANA Functional and Technical Formal: Financial Accounting, General Ledger, Controlling, Cost Accounting, Master D Confidential, Fixed Assets, Projects, Accounts Payable & Receivable, Sales, VAT & Withholding Taxes, Procurement, Material Management, Profitability Analysis, Travel Management, ABAP Programming, Workflow.

Computer Literacy: MS Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, Visio and Word, Hyperion.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Confidential, Hershey, PA

Senior Manager

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for leading and overseeing the Solution Life Cycle Management of SAP ERP Finance Systems, including developing technology and business processes roadmaps, prioritize technology initiatives, identifying innovation opportunities, and staying abreast of industry and technology trends.
• Accountable for setting the SAP strategy and for moving from legacy SAP and Non-SAP Finance systems and business processes to SAP S/4HANA.
• Champion and drive the adoption of best in class leading edge technology to support financial business processes.
• Adopt industry best practices, streamline and optimize processes in the areas of General Accounting, Cost Accounting, Material Ledger, Fixed Assets, Project System, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Treasury, Profitability Analysis and Travel Management operations Worldwide.
• Definition of the ERP strategic roadmap for Financial systems and business processes, aimed at leapfrogging from a fragmented, highly customized, and outdated SAP ECC environment to the cutting-edge S/4HANA platform, with consolidated, simplified and global best business processes and practices, to drive efficiencies, reduce cybersecurity and business risks, increase enterprise connectivity and speed up adoption of technology and process changes.
• Design of the Global template for Finance systems, and adoption of new processes in preparation for the migration to the S/4HANA platform: Material Ledger, transition from Costing-Based COPA to Account-Based COPA, Document Splitting, Brand and Segment reporting.
• Implementation and deployment of the S/4HANA Central Finance solution for SAP/Non-SAP ERP financial reporting in real-time. Central Finance is the first stepping stone in the journey to migrate systems and processes to the S/4HANA platform.
• Implementation and deployment of the entire Concur Travel Management Suite Worldwide (Concur Travel, Concur Expense and Concur Pay), fully integrated to SAP ECC and S/4HANA. Concur manages expense reporting for over 3,000 employees globally with an annual spend of more than $25 million.

Confidential, Lyndhurst, NJ

Director, Finance Support Services

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for leading and managing the strategic direction of the Finance Support Services function: General Accounting, Cost Accounting, Fixed Assets, Accounts Receivable, Wholesale Rebates, Purchasing, Accounts Payable, Treasury, Profitability Analysis and Travel Management operations in North America, incorporating industry and system best practices across Global Order-To-Cash ( Confidential ), Procure-To-Pay (PTP) and Record-To-Report (RTR) domains.
• Accountable for partnering with multidisciplinary business and technical stakeholders to develop the vision and scope processes and operating procedures.
• Collaborate and align the Business Support functions in Europe and Asia aimed at extending the Financial Shared Services Center model worldwide.
• Accountable for providing SAP FICO functional and operational support.
• Champion the evaluation, development, prioritization and execution of projects and business solutions.
• Manage outsourced organization responsible for providing technical and functional support for RTR and PTP systems and processes; ensure compliance with Service Level Agreements; schedule and prioritize new system/process implementations and improvements.
• Implementation and ongoing support of a fully automated and compliant Travel Management system and processes in North America, managing expense reporting for over 15,000 employees with an annual spend of $80 million.
• Global deployment in seven European countries underway.
• Revamp, standardize, automate, operationalize and administer direct and indirect financial allocations strategy and processes across business units.
• Streamline, realign and centralize the entire Source-To-Pay processes for North America in a Shared Services Center in North Carolina utilizing world-class systems, technology and processes.
• Take over the business support of Cost Accounting, Order-To-Cash, Wholesale Rebates Management and Profitability Analysis functions and processes.
• Key leader in the extension and deployment of RTR and PTP Shared Services footprint, systems and process to Europe and Asia.

Confidential, Princeton, NJ

Director, Global Financial Shared Services Americas

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for leading the Financial Shared Services Record-To-Report ( Confidential ) General Accounting, Fixed Assets, Accounts Payable and Treasury; Global Order-To-Cash ( Confidential ) and Tax Center of Excellence ( Confidential ) operations for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain and Venezuela. Led implementations of SAP footprint in Latin America.
• Regional coordination of strategic planning, budgeting, quarterly forecasting, cash flow projection and capital spending.
• Performed consolidation and reporting of monthly financial information. Led monthly legal entity P&L and balance sheet reviews.
• Developed and monitored KPI and metrics. Managed priorities to deliver US GAAP and local statutory reporting with differing legal and statutory requirements.
• Was responsible for guaranteeing an effective SOX environment. Led and developed a multi-country organization of more than 110 finance resources with a variety of cultural styles.
• Partnered with local and regional Finance Directors and business unit General Managers. Defined and executed cash management strategies.
• Coordinated internal, external and tax audits. Championed continuous improvement, business transformation and integration projects.
• Decision-maker for location selection, building, staffing and expansion of centers of excellence in Buenos Aires (FSS), Sao Paulo ( Confidential ) and Mexico City (Tax) with a finance staff of 110 employees under direct supervision.
• Implementation of SAP footprint in all countries in the region.
• Implementation of Business Continuity Plans for the Finance centers of excellence aimed at mitigating and distributing operational risk.
• Transition and centralization of financial services for legal entities in Latin America and Iberia. Liquidation of legal entities in Central America.
• Identification, development, positioning and expatriation of candidates for key Finance positions cross-regionally.
• Repatriation of more than $100M cross-regionally to home office through cash management strategies that included intercompany settlements, dividends, capitalizations, decapitalizations, royalties, service fees and recharge models.
• Active participation in SOX and internal audits. Key player responsible for remediation actions within a 3-month period.