Finance Director
01 June 2009 —
10 March 2015
SDC Group Of Companies – Djibouti & UAE
Headquartered in East Africa region (Djibouti-Head Office, Ethiopia, Somaliland) & Dubai(UAE). An exclusive distributor in the Horn of Africa for Unilever, Reckit & Benckiser, Johnson & Johnson, Huggies, Arla Foods, Wrigly, Mars, Barilla Gidda. The Business spans from trading in FMCG & commodities, import & re-export, logistics, clearing & forwarding to Interior designing (the Production Wing named as “Media Home”).
Professional Responsibilities:
• At core in strategic decision making with a focus on effective organization, sustainable growth, operational controls & financial Policy, Financial statement analysis, FP&A and Business Planning.
• Financial modelling necessary for business development including for example existing product/Market mix portfolio, Investment in new product portfolio, New market penetration, capital investment in new ventures.
• Managed cash flows, trends & projections for working capital to ensure safe liquidity by Putting cap on max & min cash holding. External Audit coordination, Tax planning (VAT, OPS & Corporate).
• Monitored monthly IMS (In Market sales & Stock) for the submission to multinational vendors like Reckitt Benckiser, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, ARLA FOODS and MARS.
• Conducted frequent Visits across markets in the region to gain insights of Financial & business activities and performance evaluation to ensure proper roll out of Management strategies.
Key Achievements:
• Re-organized internal controls system and restructured the business processes with activities integration to save customer’s order execution time & cost and improved operational flows & corporate governance.
• Initiated decision to establish full scale in-house Logistics Department. The decision not only contributed around 3% in total revenue increase but also gave incremental cost savings of 9% vs outsourcing.
• New market development with complete distribution set up in Somaliland - Somalia (East Africa) as part of capitalizing the profitable opportunities. Financing arranged at minimum capital cost. The decision added 18% in total turnover with 10% in profitability.
• Strategic direction in planning and development of credit control policies & procedures to optimize cash flows. Re-engineered Capital structure at minimum cost of capital. Achieved 7% reduction in finance cost coupled with favorable negotiations of Term credits, Loans, Post financing & LC’s terms.
• Recognition of high/low margin products and their market position. Responsible for driving through change management while challenging the sales team on Customer/product profitability, competitor positioning. Product Portfolio management by Pulling Resources (Financial, Marketing & Human) from slow moving into Cash Cows, thereby increasing sales and reduced financial investment & cost tied up in dead inventory.
• Coupled with operating management, set targets for business development and growth in sales revenues. Initiation, Investment analysis & successful negotiation of addition of Commodities in product portfolio of Djibouti Market. The Initiative yielded the sales increase of 20% in following year with profits addition of 11%. Regularly monitored the portfolio performance reports.
• Negotiated sustained & mutually profitable “trade offers” with our vendors to offer our clients in Direct & Indirect market coverage of distribution channels. This strategy coupled with high quality products, distribution networks enabled us market leader around 38%+ market share for most of our products (Dairy, FMCG) with increased visibility in upper shelves & enhanced brands equity, loyalty and competitive edge.
• Represented SDC Group in AOP’s of Reckit Benckiser in Sudan, Egypt & UAE and Arla Foods as well.