Surya Prakash Mantha

Job Description: Lead Controls Advisory Solution and Serve Protiviti's internal audit, SOX and risk advisory client engagements and manage key client relationships. Key areas of my work include:

Key Achievements at Protiviti

a) Increased Controls Advisory revenue from £0.5 million to £ 3.5 million in three years since taking charge.

b) Established internal control and SOX leadership to represent Protiviti UK in the Global SOX champions’ network to develop thought leadership, methodology, tools, practice aids and training globally for Protiviti.

c) Retained client engagements for more than seven years on annuity work by ‘keeping the promises’ and maintaining regular communication to become their trusted partner of choice for consulting work.

d) Established trusted consulting partner relationships at five client accounts that I took charge of from scratch to establish Protiviti as the sole service provider of choice.

e) Converted professional network to Protiviti client base and gained trusted relationships.

f) Achieved cross-solution sales to sell IT consulting and Business Performance improvement projects to my internal control clients.

g) Exceeded performance targets for all 10 years with Protiviti which includes, sales, billing, and overall client service and quality. (current annual sales £ 2m, annual billing £1.5 m).

Key roles:

- SOX Champion and Controls Advisory Solution Lead for the UK. Leads new client opportunities and RFP response for SOX and controls.

- Account Director for five key accounts including one global strategic account with $ USD 5 million revenue. Holds key client relationships with C-suite, Business Group Controllers, and head of Audits.

- Relationship Director for 10 non-key client accounts to represent Protiviti across all solutions including Managed Services and staff augmentation.

- Line Manager for the Senior Managers in the Internal audit and financial advisory solution group.

- Business development coach for Managers and Senior Managers, including new Associate Directors.

- Control’s solution lead for Finance transformation and change programmes to represent Controls in our change programmes including Performance improvement and Technology implementation projects.

- Leads market publications and thought leadership for theControls Advisory sub-solution group and owns the marketing plan for publications, webinars, and marketing events.

- Leads client targeting activity for UK Corporate Reforms, new IPOs of UK and European companies in the US or FTSE to transition them to establish Internal controls over financial reporting (ICOFR).

- Member of the Internal audit leadership group to contribute to the solution strategy, recruitment, people development, marketing, and business development.

Key client engagements:

§ Internal audit Co-source: Leads relationships with five Heads of Internal Audit where I supported in delivering their audit plan for the past 5+ years. The role involves managing their audit needs, advising on the audit plan, identifying audits where data analytics and process mining could be deployed, and supporting the audit function with resource needs. (Internal audit co-source).

§ UK Telecommunications company: Multi-year Controls design project in a major IT change programme that involved the migration of CRM and post-paid billing systems to a cloud-based platform with interfaces to over 20+ legacy systems covering more than 200+ mobile revenue sub-processes. (Controls design in IT change programme). Provide staff augmentation support to Finance and ITGC SOX teams.

§ Global Packaging Company: Year 1 SOX Programme and ongoing 6-year SOX controls testing programme to continue until 2026. Led the SOX programme as a European PMO covering 25 locations including three shared service centers. The role involved a high level of collaboration with 4 Protiviti offices and the client's Internal controls audit team to achieve high-quality outcomes that were consistently delivered. Led the development of the baseline process documentation, risk and controls that were used by the global Protiviti teams. The project was delivered on time and budget with a full SOX compliance status in year one. (SOX programme). The client has awarded Protiviti a 6-year contract as their global SOX programme partner after being extremely satisfied with the year 1 work that was led globally including the European role that I led which was a significant and most complex region for the client.

Job Description, E&Y London: Manage a portfolio of clients and expand relationships with existing and new clients. The majority of my work includes the design of controls.

Key Achievements:

a) Received a ‘value award’ for going the extra mile in every aspect of our shared values in every project at E&Y. I received 7 value awards during my time at E&Y.

b) UK Energy supplier, Smart metering program: Established risk and controls function in the program. Control’s profile is designed with 60% automated controls & 70% preventive controls). Managed to sell our services to the client for an extended period of 6 months.

c) Japanese Car maker, Control’s improvement projects: Control’s environment was transformed to further automate controls in key finance processes which helped the organisation achieve an overall control automation level of 80%.

d) UK Pharma business, IT change transformation program: Transformed controls profile from 80 % manual controls to 60% automated controls.

e) Successfully Led a group of 40 members in EY as the Counseling Family Leader to promote closer ties among the team through regular team meetings, and community events.

Key client engagements in E&Y London:

§ Led risk and controls work stream at a multi-billion-dollar business transformation program of a UK Energy supplier. My key responsibilities included: identifying risks from the business change, designing controls in the new processes, and managing program risks/issues. A key aspect of the project was to identify 3rd party risks and design controls to transfer the risks to the service providers.

§ Led SOX Controls assurance covering the European operations of a leading Japanese car maker. The engagement covered three phases of testing and included documentation, detailed testing, deficiency reporting, controls designed to address failures, and reporting. (Assurance).

§ Developed the risk and controls section of the Commercial strategy for a UK energy supplier ahead of the supplier engagement in a major transformation program (Control’s design).

§ Developed controls framework for the world’s biggest consumer products company at the back of a Finance cost reduction program using best practice controls design from SAP (Control’s design).

§ Co-facilitated country risk workshops for three countries with senior leadership teams of the client (Global mining giant) (Risk Management).

§ Lead control improvement projects prior to implementation of SAP for a Japanese car maker with a primary objective to improve controls through theuse of SAP functionality – details in (c) below (Control’s design).

§ Led operational reviews on behalf of a Bank to conduct annual reviews of borrower’s financial ability to meet loan obligations (Assurance).

§ Led controls work stream in an IT change transformation program that involved theupgrade of theFinancial accounting system. (Pharma) (Control’s design).

Job Description:: Senior Manager Internal audit and Lead manager for Supply chain services. Majority of my work included SOX, internal audits, and contract reviews.

Key Achievements:

a) Coached and counseled team members to develop them into successful team leaders and managers.

b) Helped the practice sail through the 2008 financial crisis by quickly identifying client work in other teams (external financial audit) and coaching a team of 10 members to deliver the work.

c) Transformed relationships at a listed company client from an internal audit outsourcing to a major advisory partner by always doing the right thing for the client and being a trusted advisor.

Key engagements:

SOX Projects

§ I have managed the SOX engagement for a UK-listed insurance business covering their Middle East Regional operation (Dubai, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia), the work included process documentation and detailed financial controls testing for all the key processes.

§ I started as a SOX engagement team leader when SOX was first introduced in 2005. We were engaged to assist our client who had massive operations in Dubai and Baku. I Led the SOX efforts at this client and was promoted during that time from Team leader to Engagement Manager, during this period we transformed the client from ‘consultant dependent’ to ‘self-sufficient’. This was the biggest client team at EY Dubai during the time and was often regarded as a true success story.

§ I was responsible for managing the SOX testing and reporting for three US-listed Oil Services Companies that operated a branch in Dubai.

Internal Audit Outsourcing:

§ I helped a listed telecom company set up their internal audit function and managed the internal audit outsourcing relationship for the initial three years, the role involved assisting them in determining audit areas and managing internal audits to audit committee reporting. I was also the Relationship Manager for the client transformed relationships at the client and expanded our services to more client teams (Customer, Finance, and Marketing).

§ Managed internal audits of a globally renowned Luxury Hotel chain for four years.

§ Managed internal audit outsource engagement for a Leading construction company (initial set up of the outsource engagement team and handover to the team after running it for the first year).

§ Took over a strained internal audit outsourcing project and turned around the client by rebuilding relationships and completing delayed audits.

§ I was the pursuit leader for the biggest Internal audit proposals, we have won internal audit projects for major clients in Dubai.

§ Led multiple Internal Audit methodology training in various EY countries and clients.

Contract Review Projects: I was the Lead Manager for the delivery of Supply chain and Contract review engagements in E&Y Dubai. In this role, I have provided formal classroom training sessions to our internal teams and in a few instances to clients. Details of some client projects:

§ Delivered a supply chain cost reduction program in Dubai for a UK-listed non-life insurance company, the program was later rolled out to Oman and Saudi Arabia after the success in Dubai. We identified cost savings of approx. £ 1.5m in Dubai in the motor claims spend and assisted the company in transforming the claims and supply chain process.

§ Mobile network contract review (DBOT contract): Identified unclaimed liquidated damages of approx. $ 10 million among other serious lapses in the contract terms, which led to immediate renegotiation and a change of supplier at the end of the term.

§ Property management service contract review: Identified undisclosed rental income of approx. $10 million, which led to the cancellation of the contract and legal actions on the property management company.

§ Dredging (land reclamation) contract review: Review of the dredging contract with a view to establish whether the price charged under the cost-plus contract was as per the contract.

Other engagements

§ Registration of a UK Insurance business in a new market: I was seconded to work directly with the Financial Director of a UK-listed insurance company for 6 months to assist in the registration of the company as a legal entity in Saudi Arabia, this role involved preparing financial reports and managing communications with the Insurance regulator and actuary.

§ Developed policies and procedures for key areas of their business including Finance and Procurement for a large Leisure business.

§ Led and Managed an ERM project for one of the biggest holding companies in UAE with interests in Real Estate and Technology, our role included setting up the Risk Management function and rolling out the Risk framework across the business.

Job description:

• Microsoft Dynamics (formerly Navision) Functional Consultant with pre-sales responsibility
• End-to-end ERP implementation, training, data migration, and post-implementation support

Key achievements:

a) Established relationships with big-4 firms to increase brand visibility.

b) Identified and successfully sold the largest ERP implementation projects by collaborating with SMEs from other geographies.