Ralph Alexander Brower III MBA, SSGB
***********@*****.***, 443-***-****, 10911 Cedar Oaks Lane, Columbia, MD, 21044
Summary of Experience and Qualifications:
• Big 4 Consulting Manager with 5 years consulting experience & 8 years finance experience leading Finance & IT Transformation projects. Project activities include: Leading analysis of Finance & IT department personnel, operating & technology processes, benchmarking as-is performance vs. industry practices, identifying gaps, conducting gaps & maturity analysis, presenting recommendations, implementation of improvements.
• Led eight (8) Deloitte Consulting LLP client facing projects, five (5) internal Deloitte Consulting LLP projects. Led numerous business development proposals, and responsible for recruiting (public speaking and interviewing 50+ candidates yearly) across four (4) accredited universities.
• Fortune 500 corporate and business unit financial planning & analysis (FP&A) leadership experience includes: Budgeting, forecasting, financial statement analysis for P&L, Balance Sheet & Cash Flow: ratio, variance, and trend analysis, leading capital expenditures analysis and approvals: Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Economic Value Added (EVA) modeling, external financial benchmarking vs. industry players, drafting financial analysis & reports to board and investor relations teams, and leading financial systems implementations.
• Possesses an MBA from Syracuse University, Secret Level Clearance from the US Government (issued: 2009)
Experience
Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. September 2014-October 2014
Sr. Finance Manager, FP&A, Construction Do-It-Yourself (CDIY) Group – $6B Division
• As a lead within CDIY FP&A & Finance Transformation (FT): Drafted, delivered, and presented the future state CDIY Platform Governance Model outlining the people, processes, and technology for CDIY to update and monitor financial systems application changes, dataflow, reporting and forecasting processes between CDIY source general ledgers, consolidating SAP financial systems, and Oracle-Hyperion Enterprise Financial Systems (Hyperion Planning & Hyperion Financial Management (HFM)).
• Impact: Delivered a Platform Governance Model which included: Five multi-departmental workflow process maps, process narratives including participants, analysis activities, leadership reviews and approvals, software tools, upstream dependencies, downstream impacts, associated change request forms, and preliminary service level agreement considerations across CDIY finance, IT shared services center, and the corporate IT competency center. Delivered multiple briefings to the CDIY CFO, CDIY Director of FP&A, and the North America FT leads gaining organization support with buy-in. Platform Governance Model to-be put into place May 2015 as a key support component to the CDIY Finance Transformation.
Deloitte Consulting LLP September 2009-September 2014
Manager, Strategy & Operations (S&O), Client – $14B US Federal Civilian Agency
• Led a project team of two which performed a financial systems and financial processes feasibility study across three phases: Phase one: Conduct current state assessment of systems and operations. Phase two: Benchmark technology systems and operations and compare findings against leading agency practices. Phase three: Presented analysis of alternatives (AOA) based on technology and operations gap analysis.
• Impact: Delivered a study articulating three alternatives, all enhanced operations which, if implemented, would reduce planned expenditures > $2.0M across a ten year investment horizon.
Manager, S&O, Client – $60B Commercial Services Company
• Led a project team of five which defined 7,000+ business, process and system requirements to detail the design for a warehouse-management-software (WMS) system solution for the CIO. Performed extensive industry research, requirements writing and mapping, process analysis, conducted vendor meetings, drafted the detailed business case, AOA, recommendations and drafted the statement of work (SOW) for the implementation.
• Impact: Delivered the strategic direction and tactical plan to implement a WMS system simplifying the current asset tracking systems and process steps (40+ processes to be reduced to < 10 processes) to control and monitor the flow of products across facilities, which would reduce planned expenditures > $10.0M on an annual basis.
Manager, S&O, Client – $60B Commercial Services Company
• Led a project team of two which performed a program and project level gap analysis within the CIO office identifying the agency’s technology capability gaps, operational performance gaps, critical risks, critical issues, data leakage, and inaccurate reporting. Determined which programs and projects should remediate the gaps identified, planned the level of effort (resources, budget dollars, duration) across projects to execute. Presented gap analysis, project gaps remediation roadmap, and benefits analysis to senior leadership with buy-in.
• Impact: Created a department level assessment tool used by senior leadership to track the remediation of technology gaps; which were delegated to CIO projects in an effort to reduce complexity across current systems.
Sr. Consultant, S&O, Client –$150B US Federal Department of Defense (DoD) Agency
• Led a project team of three which documented and analyzed financial processes (month end close, payables and receivables processing, account reconciliations, financial reporting activities) and identified financial risks and inadequate controls across the accounting, budget, and financial systems offices within the agency. Identified, documented and prioritized improvement opportunities, and presented to senior leadership. In addition, led the phase-one of DoD integrated labor and expense reporting system, drafted/presented project documentation and facilitated agency meetings with financial operations and policy managers from eight different federal agencies.
• Impact: Created a department level assessment tool used by senior leadership to identify and track the remediation of gaps across financial offices to reduce complexity of finance processes using current systems. Remediation efforts were approved in 2011 and were successfully implemented. The phase-one system implementation was approved in 2012, with requirements and processes defined. System is currently in the build and deploy phases within the software development life cycle (SDLC).
Phoenix Partners, LLC June 2009-September 2009
Project Manager, Client – Fannie Mae
• Project was a component of an overall $110M Ernst & Young engagement. Led a project team of three which documented as-is and future state financial analysis processes and implemented changes to the Oracle-Hyperion Planning financial system at Fannie Mae in response to FIN 46 accounting regulation changes. Oversaw project deliverables and communications with client: Drafted weekly status reports, detailed project plan and schedule, scope document, change control process document and requests, managed sign-offs and approvals, drafted test plan and user acceptance testing documents, and detailed process flows.
• Impact: Provided Fannie Mae CFO office with documented as-is financial analysis processes and future state processes; which were implemented with thorough integration and user acceptance testing in 2009.
Constellation Energy Group (CEG) May 2007-December 2008
Project Manager & Principal Financial Analyst (Corporate FP&A)
• Department lead for two corporate finance implementations: Hyperion Strategic Finance (HSF), and Hyperion Planning (HP): Led a Deloitte/Hyperion team of four resources to define as-is analysis enabled finance processes, future state processes, requirements, design, build, testing, and “go-live” for HSF. Led a Hyperion team of two plus four CEG staff to implement Hyperion Planning: Drafted requirements, reports, and future chart of accounts, testing plan, testing scripts, future state financial analysis processes and reports.
• Impact (HSF): Analysis time to produce various corporate level scenarios on profitability/liquidity/solvency/risk reduced from two weeks to less than one business day.
• Impact (HP): Corporate leaders have the capability to view cost centers with cross-sections of financial details, by projects, in a hybrid reporting view vs. only using either a legal entity view, or a management view.
• Analyzed and reported CE Power Generation business unit (30+ Power Generation Facilities): Analyzed monthly/quarterly/annual financial results vs. forecasts and budget to Sr. Finance Leaders. Served as the business unit primary FP&A contact. Reported P&L variances, drivers of variances, contributed to the assembly of financial packages: Board of Directors (BOD), Investor Presentations, Monthly Presentations and drafted supplemental reports: MW hours produced per ea. power plant, fixed vs. variable expenses, and headcount reports for internal distribution.
Microstrategy Incorporated (MSTR) May 2005-May 2007
Sr. Financial Analyst (Corporate FP&A)
• Analyzed and reported financial performance vs. drafted budgets for two business units (USA, LATAM) and three departments (HR, Technology Services, Corporate Contracts Team) monthly/quarterly/annually.
• Benchmarked MSTR financial performance (P&L, Balance Sheet) vs. industry competitors quarterly (Cognos, Business Objects, Actuate, and Oracle-Hyperion): Reviewed and reported Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as: Revenue, Gross Margin, SG&A, EBITDA, Market Capitalization, Enterprise Value, EPS, L12M P/E, DSO, DPO, Quick Ratio, Current Ratio, ROE, ROA, LT Debt to Equity, Capital Expenditures, etc.
• Contributed to the assembly of financial packages: Board of Directors (BOD) Presentations, Quarterly Financial Presentations. Forecasted foreign currency gain/loss: Estimated monthly financial impacts of currency value changes to AR/AP & Cash balances on a monthly and quarterly basis.
Royal Ahold NV (AHO) August 2002-August 2004
Sr. Financial Analyst (Corporate FP&A)
• Led the review and approval process for Real Estate Capital Expenditure Approvals (ea. investment value between $5M-$50M USD): Analyzed and presented 50+ projects to the USA CEO and CFO for signature approval. Estimated and reported business unit, and store-level impacts vs. budgets and forecasts: Maintained 50+ CAPEX financial MS-Excel models, provided in-depth scenario analysis using different project assumptions, performed analysis on projects after approvals to determine profitability; worked extensively with the following KPIs: NPV, IRR, EVA, Free Cash Flow (FCF), Return on Capital Employed (ROCE), ROA.
• Benchmarked AHO financial performance (P&L, Balance Sheet) vs. industry competitors quarterly (Wal-Mart, Safeway, Publix, Food Lion, Acme Stores): Reviewed and reported KPIs such as: Revenue, Gross Margin, SG&A, EBITDA, Market Capitalization, Enterprise Value, EPS, L12M P/E, DSO, DPO, Quick Ratio, Current Ratio, ROE, ROA, LT Debt to Equity, Capital Expenditures, Same-Store-Sales, Comparable-Sales, etc.
• Analyzed and reported financial performance vs. drafted budgets for three business units (Giant Food Stores, Tops Markets, and Peapod Incorporated) monthly/quarterly/annually. Reported quarterly financial metrics to leadership: EBIT estimates, capital plan changes, weekly sales reporting.
GE Capital: GE Financial Assurance Corporation (GEFA) August 1999-April 2002
Financial Analyst (Expense Controls Group & Corporate FP&A)
• Analyzed and reported financial performance vs. drafted budgets for one business unit: Terra Financial Planners Group, monthly/quarterly/annually. Reported monthly revenues (financial product sales) to senior finance staff.
• Productivity Reporting: Modeled business unit’s revenues vs. fixed and variable costs during quarter close and for budgets/forecasts. Created and tested productivity modeling and reporting model in Oracle Financials.
• Analyzed and reported expenses by month, quarter and year vs. budget and forecasts. Updated ABC (activity based costing) databases and financial models used to allocate costs across cost center groups. Analyzed and reported P&L and B/S impacts due to cost allocation methodology changes. Prepared site expense reports vs. other expense reports as requested.
Education
Syracuse University, Martin J. Whitman School of Management, Syracuse, NY May 1999
Masters of Business Administration (MBA), Financial Management & Marketing Communications
Bachelors of Science, Financial Management & Public Policy Law Minor: Economics May 1997
Certifications and Training
GE Six Sigma Training (DMAIC/DMADV) – Green Belt Certification, Black Belt Training
Deloitte Consulting LLP Project Management Training, Lean Six Sigma Training
Deloitte Sponsored Harvard Business School (HBS) Certifications: Leadership Essentials, Management Essentials
Software Experience & Financial Systems Experience
Software: MS Office 2010 (Word, Excel, Access, Power-Point, Visio), Microsoft Project, MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, HP Quality Center, SharePoint, Adobe Digital and Adobe Acrobat
Financial Systems: SAP, Hyperion Strategic Finance, Hyperion Planning, Hyperion Enterprise Consolidating and Reporting, OutlookSoft CPM, Microstrategy, Oracle Financials