Katy Cook

OAG is a flight information data / tech business headquartered in the UK with a turnover of ~$80m and 300+ employees. Private equity owned.

Achievements:

• Played a key role in the sale and acquisition financial due diligence processes, including producing business case for acquisition target, working with advisors to prepare financial models and info packs for bidders, lead on P&L FDD.
• Post-acquisition integration and implementation of new subsidiaries onto Finance systems.
• Build out Commercial Finance team adding business partners, analyst, and systems professionals.

Responsibilities:

• Reporting to Group CFO and partnering across all areas of business to C-Suite level.
• Provide strategic insights for informed decision-making to C-Suite and board.
• Leadership, recruitment, and development of Commercial finance team of six.
• Develop financial strategies to maximise budget allocations and ROI.
• Lead planning processes across group.
• Responsible for production of board packs, and monthly MI to investors and lenders.
• Implementation of systems and process improvements, streamlining operations for increased productivity.
• Collaboration across international finance teams.

Achievements:

• Implemented Finance business partnering for organisation
• Developed reporting of SaaS metrics and Annual Contract Value analysis including growth levers.
• Selected for Franklin Covey Leadership Edge programme - small selection of upcoming leaders enrolled on a yearlong development course.
• Implemented a new FP&A planning tool - Adaptive Insights

Responsibilities:

• Lead global FP&A activities and provide commercial finance support across business.
• Lead team of three Finance managers based in UK head office, collaborating across regional finance teams to ensure regular reporting and planning requirements are met.
• Support decision-making through financial modelling, scenario analysis, and investment cases.
• Responsible for timely and accurate production of management, board, and investor reporting.
• Partnering with executive leadership team to provide regular updates on performance and future projections.

NGA Human Resources is a global payroll software and BPO company, headquartered in the UK, private equity owned. Turnover ~£750m with 4,000+ employees. Was once part of Northgate Information Solutions, now known as Alight / Strada.

Key projects included and achievements:

• Company separation / divestment of UK mid-market & SME businesses.
• Completed PRINCE II Practitioner certification with top marks in the class.
• Organisational master data structure changes across business systems.
• Implementation of new IFRS15 accounting standard.
• Ongoing support following opening of new Centre of Excellence for Finance in India and systems rollout.

Responsibilities:

• Reporting to Group CFO, and part of Finance Leadership Team.
• Lead for any change initiatives across finance function, by mobilising virtual teams from across finance, IT and other business functions.
• Managing overall finance roadmap, including setting up governance structure, assessment, prioritisation and progression of initiatives.

Achievements:

• Transition of FP&A and Financial Controlling teams from UK/Spain to India based COE, including leading and motivating through period of significant change.
• Lead implementation of SAP BPC for planning and consolidation.
• Design and implementation of new reporting suite (Business Objects).
• Support PE sale and refinancing processes through preparation of key financial information.

Responsibilities:

• Lead planning cycles for group – three-year plan, annual budget, mid-year forecast, monthly risks and opportunities assessment.
• Production of board decks and investor presentations.
• Leadership, coaching, and development of group FP&A team of five based across UK and Spain.
• Corporate bonus scheme – target setting, tracking provision vs projected payout, final scheme performance.

EE is a large mobile telecommunications company operating in the UK. It was formed through the merger of T-Mobile UK and Orange UK in 2010. It is now part of the BT Group.

Achievements:

• Through analysis of call volume data and metrics, brought about a significant change to workforce planning which lead to better utilisation of call centre staff to drive improved value to the business.
• Took on additional responsibilities to partner with the Marketing teams to cover a colleagues period of absence.

Responsibilities:

• Business partner to Sales / Campaigns leadership team.
• Provide insightful analysis and input to support decision making and identify improvement opportunities.
• Support monthly and quarterly business reviews with Chief Commercial Officer.
• Budget management, cost / benefit optimisation to meet business requirements and financial evaluation of proposed activities.
• Reporting and analysis of monthly financial and KPI performance versus targets.
• Work in collaboration with resource planning teams to understand and challenge assumptions, resource requirements, robustness of plans and identify risks/opportunities relative to interlocked sales targets.

Achievements:

• Played key role in merger with Orange by leading on identification of Opex synergies across Sales, Marketing, Product, and Customer Services.
• Financial assessment of new initiatives and strategic projects (including set-up of new onshore & offshore contact centres).
• Helped build new Commercial & Customer Finance team through substantial hiring process to fill roles in new team structure.

Responsibilities:

• Business partner to Customer Services Leadership Team.
• Accountable for leading, inspiring and developing a commercially engaged team of three.
• Responsible for monthly reporting and presentation of results at customer services leadership team meetings.
• Budgeting, forecasting and production of three-year plan for channel.
• Provide insightful analysis of financial information and KPIs to identify performance opportunities.