Leanne Spier

Chief Financial Officer at 369 Global
  • Claim this Profile
Contact Information
us****@****om
(386) 825-5501
Location
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, CA
Skills

Topline Score

Topline score feature will be out soon.

Bio

Generated by
Topline AI

5.0

/5.0
/ Based on 2 ratings
  • (2)
  • (0)
  • (0)
  • (0)
  • (0)

Filter reviews by:

Catherine Riedel

I worked for Leanne while she was Vice President, Finance responsible for the Global IT group. She was great to work for and made me feel like I was a valued employee. She brought me into the planning process from the beginning allowing me to understand what was included in the budget , which allowed me to better understand and analyze actual results Leanne was also a terrific mentor for the first time in my roll within Global IT did I actually feel that I had true support from a finance perspective. She also showed interest in both my professional and personal life, Leanne was a genuine person with a great sense of humour

Randy Broderick

Leanne’s key asset is her ability to think strategically as well as manage specific financial/commercial details across the full life cycle of pursuit and delivery governance within the IAD (Identify Acquire and Deliver) phases.

You need to have a working account to view this content.
Join now
You need to have a working account to view this content.
Join now

Credentials

  • Chartered Professional Accountant
    Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA Canada)
    Jan, 2001
    - Nov, 2024

Experience

  • 369 Global
    • Canada
    • Business Consulting and Services
    • 1 - 100 Employee
    • Chief Financial Officer
      • Jan 2023 - Present

      369 Global is a business conglomerate with interests in education and training, financial services, creative industries, social impact, and more. With a strong leadership team experienced in building businesses in North America, Europe, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, the group continues to seek out opportunities that focus just not on the bottom line but also help shape meaningful global outcomes for our generation and the next. Since the beginning, our mission has been to provide people with promising solutions to their greatest developmental challenges. We are a multifaceted company specializing in education & training, financial services, creative industries and social impact. Show less

  • Englobe
    • Canada
    • Civil Engineering
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • Vice President, Finance
      • Apr 2021 - Dec 2022

      Provide leadership and act as a financial and strategic contributor for the Professional Services division. Primary duties include working on strategic analyses, improving and harmonizing processes to deliver finance excellence across the division. Provide leadership and act as a financial and strategic contributor for the Professional Services division. Primary duties include working on strategic analyses, improving and harmonizing processes to deliver finance excellence across the division.

  • World
    • Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    • Travel & Personal Development Sabbatical
      • Oct 2018 - Mar 2021

       Appointed as a Board Director of a not-for-profit charity, nominated to the Treasury Committee and serving as Head of the Finance Committee.  Participated in numerous online courses, including Fraud & Ethics, Diversity, Equality & Inclusion, Leading & Managing High Performing Teams, Leading Teams Virtually, Questions Every CFO Should Be Asking In Uncertain Times and attended the CFO Leadership Council (CFOLC)masterclass series.  Travelled to 4 continents and multiple cities, gaining deep experience in cultural diversity. Show less

  • Wood
    • United Kingdom
    • Professional Services
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • Vice President, Finance
      • Feb 2017 - Sep 2018

      Oversaw one direct report in Manchester with 2 indirect reports in India and U.S., managing the global costs where 60% were in the UK, Canada, and the U.S.  Detected an unacceptable global IT budget too high for current revenue volume, causing concern and drove financial awareness to understand the impacts of the high priced technical and licensing agreements.  Renegotiated contracts to allow flexibility with headcount and share licenses across the world to take advantage of various time zones to capture a $8.7M IT spend decrease.  Evaluated employee accounts to uncover past employees holding active accounts with Microsoft licenses.  Worked with Human Resources in multiple geographies to communicate with ex-employees and halt their MS licenses to reduce 750 active licenses and save $250K / annum.  Gathered business intelligence and other data to understand proposal costs for business development contracts.  Entrusted Business Development to review and prioritize resources based on business needs backed by a focused prospect list for CEO client engagement.  Bolstered the visibility of external global legal costs and collated a mass of data from vendor and financial records.  Assembled data, prepared, and presented a business case to the CEO and CLO to optimize informed decisions to reduce legal spend by 10%. Show less

  • Amec Foster Wheeler
    • United Kingdom
    • Oil and Gas
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • Vice President, Finance
      • Aug 2010 - Jan 2017

       Tasked to raise business acumen and financial awareness across all business units causing inefficiency. Developed and deployed various tools to optimize utilization and understand the breakeven point supported by intense training to operations management. Increased gross margin, reduced overheads, and increased EBITDA by 2%. Navigated through cultural diversity differences in work ethics and multiple time zones to evaluate financial risks of construction projects in Australia with engineering completed in Chile and U.S. and procurement in the U.S. and Thailand. Negotiated a deal with a client to invoice in two currencies, the Australian dollar and U.S dollar, with the client assuming the foreign exchange risk, mitigating risks to Wood plc with no erosion to profit.  Conducted research to evaluate options to reduce a bid price for an EPCM contract in Ethiopia with engineering completed in Canada. Established a legal entity in Ethiopia for split invoicing of onshore and offshore work, to reduce the withholding tax by 15%, and optimize the $100M contract appeal to win the project.  Challenged to increase profit on foreign exchange and tax exposures, assessed various issues in foreign exchange, multiple countries working on same projects, contracts in foreign currencies plus tax exposures. Swiftly evaluated and resolved problems in Chile where operations reporting was a month in arrears. Built a team to determine bottlenecks for the month-end closing, recommended process changes to return the Chile operations reporting to the same month. Reviewed processes for a newly acquired business to ensure Sarbanes Oxley U.S. reporting compliance. Worked with the existing Finance team to modify internal controls, processes, and procedures to achieve SOX compliance. Served as the Finance lead during the integration of an acquired company, developed the integration framework for Finance, Safety, Human Resources and Business Development. Show less

    • Vice President Finance
      • Jan 2004 - Aug 2010

       Handpicked to uncover and resolve multiple financial and operational issues with the U.S. entity operating on a low EBITDA. Conducted a deep-dive analysis that touched all business assets, planned, and initiated radical changes to financial and operating processes, eliminating nonvalue added processes. Facilitated presentations to the Executive Team on the need for changes and the forecasted workload reduction to propel profits from $2M-$45M in 5 years. Played a pivotal executive leadership role during the merger of two operating divisions, collating financial procedures and processes from each division. Assessed data, adopted the best practices for a combined group to eliminate duplication and unnecessary processes resulting in a 20% reduction in finance headcount. Redefined and strengthened the corporate short-term and long-term strategy to allow management greater handling of business direction. Collaborated with cross-functional staff as the Finance expert to develop strategic goals and evaluate various scenarios. Appointed as executive lead for two major development components of the new ERP (inter-company and Controllable Working Capital (CWC)). Collected current processes per region, assessed risk, presented findings and recommendations to the global CFO and other stakeholders to achieve global alignment. Nominated to plan and initiate a cost savings program, discussed with all functional leaders to generate and execute cost extraction strategies to save $25M per annum. Partnered with peers on due diligence of a potential acquisition, reviewed financial information, and recommended financial exposures to ensure acquired company met financial targets without write-downs. Show less

    • Manager, Financial Planning & Budgeting
      • Apr 2000 - Jun 2004

       Completed SWOT on benefits of consolidated monthly results in Hyperion over MS Excel, presented business cases to global executive team on Hyperion. Convinced the entity to implement Hyperion to reduce monthly and annual consolidation and increase accuracy. Managed reporting for all the Americas operations to the UK parent, drove financial consolidation performance and corporate reporting. Selected to build a budgeting and planning process that had been non-existent and standardize finance tools for all America's businesses. Acquired business requirements from Finance, Operations, and Business Development to add value to reporting, analysis and expedite decision making. Designed an MS Excel model encompassing KPI’s, backlog, go/get probabilities for prospects, fixed versus variable overheads, secured and unsecured revenue, and known and unknown prospects. Created a dynamic budgeting process and tools to focus on consistency and flexibility during rapid growth and constant change. Show less

  • Cott Corporation
    • United States
    • Food and Beverage Services
    • 100 - 200 Employee
    • Manager, Financial Planning & Analysis
      • Mar 1999 - Mar 2000

      After the reorganization and stability of the US operations, I hired my replacement locally in San Antonio, Texas and returned to the corporate office.• Managed the corporate financial, management and statutory accounting and reporting • Plan, coordinate and developed the annual global budgeting process, responsible for implementing the purchasing, tax, and treasury assumptions to mitigate exposure to foreign exchange, interest and tax costs • Prepared the three-year projected financial model for the consolidated operations which analyzed the global risks and opportunities by division and developed the weekly key account analysis used to eliminate any surprises and increase profitability• Prepared all monthly reporting package, analysis and quarterly presentation for the Board of Directors• Prepared statutory reporting and liaised with auditors on the year-end audit Show less

    • Business Planner and US Regionalization Corporate Project Manager, US Operations,
      • May 1997 - Feb 1999

      Lead person for the implementation of the US regionalization with the external consultants and took over all financial reporting for the US Operations• Developed and implemented corporate policies, internal controls, and procedures for the US operations • Oversaw and handled all financial, performance and corporate reporting requirements for the US operations • Managed all finance and accounting functions for the US operations, • Performed value added monthly analysis on risk and opportunities and presented options to the CFO and COO to make informed decisions that delivered revenue and profits • Provides day to day strategic supports to the product line managers and ensure proper execution of financial plans, budget & cost control• Prepared Performa income statements for potential new customer, new product lines to assess profitability• Completed the weekly sales analysis by key accounts, variance analysis and cause of change reports by customer and by package, including price and mix analysis Show less

    • Financial Analyst
      • Sep 1994 - Apr 1997

      • Responsible for the Global Implementation, training, and maintenance of the Hyperion enterprise system • Worked on the team that was preparing the consolidation of internal and external financial statements, notes to the financial statements and monthly management reporting package for the board of directors. • Lead member of the team providing accurate and timely financial statements and variance analysis and reports to aid in profitably managing the business • Work directly with the treasurer to implement global cash flow management in an effort to minimize tax and interest expenses Show less

  • Mark's
    • Canada
    • Retail
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • Franchise Accountant
      • Aug 1990 - Aug 1993

      • Completed the treasury functions for a year while the treasurer was on maternity leave, main responsibilities was working with the bank managing the credit facility and providing the monthly calculations for compliance with the debt covenants • Established, built and implementing a new receivable invoicing system to speed up the collection from 81 days to the term of 60 days • Prepared and reviewed cash flow reports from 50 franchises to ensure they were compliant with the franchise agreements with respect to accounts receivable and accounts payable Show less

Education

  • Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA Canada)
    2001 -
  • Western University
    Bachelor of Science - BS, Mathematics and Statistics

Community

You need to have a working account to view this content. Click here to join now