Usama M

QUALIFICATIONS

Masters - Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Royal Holloway University of London, Sep 2022 - Sep 2023

ACCA Qualified, June 2015 - April 2018

Bachelors in Applied Accounting, Oxford Brookes University

WORK HISTORY

Senior Financial Planning Analyst @ Pepboys (June 2024 – Present)

Pepboys is an American automotive unicorn company with annual sales over $1B. The company has recently been made part of Icahn Automotive Group LLC. My role in this organisation is to perform financial planning and analysis for profitability, expenses, sales and variances. I report to the Vice President FP&A in Philadelphia.

Learnings, responsibilities, and accomplishments:

• Responsible for day-to-day application support including but not limited to: business configuration development and changes, supporting report creation and processing.
• Data mining and analysis; ad-hoc reporting and system related projects.
• Creating, enhancing and maintaining current business process and reporting in Microsoft Excel.
• Ensure multiple systems interact effectively with each other related systems and support business users in resolving system issues.
• Make recommendations relative to best practices and/or system/process enhancements.
• Identify opportunities for business process improvements.
• Excessive use of SAP including ERP, Power BI, BPC/EPM tool, BO, BRIO, think cell, DOMO, business intelligence analysis tools to make complex reporting dashboards which aids senior management in decision making.
• Handling and reporting on monthly/yearly CAPEX and SG&A reports.
• Handling and reporting on Profitability book, its variance analysis with last year & budget/plan.
• Preparation of weekly and monthly Gross to Net Walk overview to share findings company wide.

Manager Financial Planning and Analysis @ Aimfit (October 2021 – June 2022)

Aimfit Pvt Ltd is a Silicon Valley-backed startup and has a head office in Singapore. Started by two Oxford graduates who later raised seed money for this tech-based startup. My role in this organization was to build the finance function from scratch and streamline reporting both internal and external.

Learnings, responsibilities, and accomplishments:

• Reporting: Compilation of reports from manual and system-generated dumps of data, using advanced Excel.
• Financial Compliance: Managing legal and financial protocols with banks, government institutions, and other regulatory bodies.
• Accounting: Transfer of manual bookkeeping to automatic through resourcing Zero as an accounting software. Consolidation of previous books and retrospective control of accounting in the new system
• Bookkeeping: Successful preparation of monthly and yearly final accounts, statements of cashflows and fixed assets register
• Internal Audit and Inventory: Building the entire internal audit function to aid against fraud. Preparation and management of NCA registers to track assets and their valuation. Provide aid in yearly external audits.
• Payroll and Income Tax: Preparation and disbursement of monthly payroll. Transfer from cheque-based payment of salaries to online fintech banking.
• Budgeting and Forecasting: Preparation and analysis of cross-departmental monthly budgets in line with financial forecasts.
• Tax: Analysis of accurate sales and income tax treatment. Filling sales tax returns to authorities and providing aid to employees with their reconciliation of income tax returns

Commercial Finance Executive @ Pioneer Cement (August 2019 – January 2021)

Pioneer Cement is a Public Limited company that produces more than 15000 tons of Cement every day and has more than five industrial plants. My role in the organization was to bridge the gap between the marketing and finance departments. I was hired under the manager Commercial Finance who used to report to the General Manager marketing and CFO.

Learnings, responsibilities, and accomplishments:

• Costing and Profitability: Providing support in accurate costing for different products and projects. Analysis of how profitability changes with the difference in cost.
• Forecasting: Support line managers in preparation of realistic financial forecasts and budgets
• Variance Analysis: Aiding in variance analysis for daily production and sales on different price and volume mix levels, consequently analysing their impact on monthly and quarterly forecasts.
• Receivables Management: Analysis of accounts receivables based on aging and then later following up with sales teams across the region to aid in recovery.
• System & Sales Support: Providing financial and accounting assistance to ORACLE and IT support teams to build bespoke reports on behalf of managers. Resolution of freight, invoicing, and rebate issues raised by clients.
• Performance Evaluation: Investigation of actual performance against targets assigned to the sales team across regions to support monthly performance evaluation.
• Internal Controls: Develop and maintain liaison with key stakeholders including the finance department, Supply chain, Internal audit, Dispatch, and IT to develop strong internal controls.

Finance Trainee Officer @ Kansai Paint (Aug 2018 – Jan 2019)

Kansai Paint is a Japanese, Osaka-based chemical company whose main products are automotive, industrial, and decorative coatings. The company is one of the world's top ten paint manufacturers. I was hired as a finance trainee officer to assist the finance team based in the head office. This role was the beginning of my learning curve in the financial ecosystem.

Key learnings:

• Banking: Preparation of bank reconciliations for several banks along with markup calculation, reconciliation, and settlement.
• Costing: Handling and costing of project accruals for different ongoing projects and products.
• Bookkeeping: Aiding in month-end closing of accounts. In charge of looking after fixed assets, depreciation run, and accuracy of posting in ERP.
• Audit and Stock Count: Team leader of monthly inventory/stock count, resolving variances and reporting to HO.
• Tax: Provide aid to the tax team, in the preparation, resolution, and filling of tax returns to the authorities.

Associate Consultant @ Ernst and Young (Apr 2018 – Aug 2018)

Ernst and Young is one of the BIG-4 consultancy firms that provides various financial and accounting services around the globe. This was supposed to be a contractual position of 3 years but ended early because of my limited interest in consultancy. However, I advanced in Microsoft Excel while working here. Other responsibilities included risk assessment and advisory of the Pakistan Skills Development Fund (PSDF) funded by WHO and the World Bank. Overseeing and managing 12 team monitors who performed audits, analysing and reporting data collected by the team in the form of reports to the head office. This assignment involved a lot of working with MS Excel and other related tools.

Internship @ Price Waterhouse Cooper (Dec 2017 – Mar 2018)

Price Waterhouse Cooper is another BIG-4 giant that has multiple offices across the globe. I started my internship here when I was in the final exams of ACCA. I was made a part of the ORACLE implementation team. I specifically assisted in streamlining the asset management module for an industrial plant. This involved site visits and fintech planning at the introductory stage.

SKILLS

• Microsoft Excel Oracle ERP
• Power BI
• SAGE
• XERO
• QuickBooks
• MS Dynamics & Visio

‍