Sushain Sadhu

• Delivering Efficiency: Led HMT-mandated review to identify 15% cost savings by 2030, enhancing financial resilience and guiding strategic planning. Conducted detailed spend analysis across £150m Corporate Services directorate (300+ FTE) and facilitated workshops to identify and model cost reduction opportunities.
• Financial Planning: Led cross-functional business planning and financial governance across £150m Corporate Services directorate (300+ FTE), aligning budgets and resources with changing strategic priorities. Collaborated with Finance, HR, Digital, Operations, Commercial, and Counter Fraud operational leads to ensure plans were evidence-based and supported organisational goals.
• Risk Management: Established portfolio-wide risk and performance reporting frameworks, delivering actionable insights that supported senior decision-making. Developed consistent reporting processes and presented clear analysis to enable early identification and mitigation of risks.
• Governance Excellence: Designed and facilitated CEO-level governance structures, enabling evidence-based investment prioritisation and organisational oversight. Prepared and managed board papers and coordinated meetings to ensure effective executive decision-making.
• KPI Management: Developed enterprise-wide KPI frameworks and dashboards, improving visibility of financial and operational performance. Worked with data teams to automate dashboards that tracked key metrics across multiple corporate functions.

Highly selective (c.3% acceptance rate) graduate scheme consistently ranked amongst best in United Kingdom.

• Variance Analysis: Led variance analysis for one-third of United Kingdom Research and Innovation's (UKRI) £11bn R&D budget, identifying key variances and financial risks to inform prudent financial management and strategic decision making.
• Excel Dashboards: Developed monthly excel dashboards to summarise UKRI's monthly performance against budget to inform meetings with HMT. Dashboards aggregated spend across 7 research councils, and flagged classification of money being spent (capital, administrative, or demand-led)
• Strategic Briefings: Prepared high-quality briefings, including project overviews, affordability insights, and financial analysis for directors on critical R&D proposals.
• Financial Oversight: Partnered with programme managers to validate project forecasts (c.£27m), ensuring alignment with reality of underlying commercial contracts for accurate financial reporting and analysis.
• Due Diligence: Examined commercial agreements to clarify payment terms, assess outflow probabilities, and ensure compliance with accrual-based cost recognition practices.
• Business Case Development: Authored and reviewed business cases to inform senior decision-making, ensuring clear articulation of strategic benefits, financial costs, delivery options, and public value.
• Specialist Tax Advice: Provided IR35 and VAT guidance across multiple government bodies on 12+ initiatives, mitigating tax risk on approximately c.£17m+ expenditure and ensuring consistent compliance with HMRC regulations.