Experience

Select Distinct

• United Kingdom
• Business Consulting and Services
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Founder and Director

  • Sep 2021 - Present

  Greater Sheffield Area Business Analytics Simplified Bringing our industry knowledge and technical know how together to get real value from your business data Working with fast-growing businesses, to provide my technical and commercial experience, to help them get answers from their data and support and upskill their data teams Sectors include Retail, Loyalty, Wholesale Combining the skills and knowledge of Management Accounting with technical capabilities in SQL and Business Intelligence… Show more Business Analytics Simplified Bringing our industry knowledge and technical know how together to get real value from your business data Working with fast-growing businesses, to provide my technical and commercial experience, to help them get answers from their data and support and upskill their data teams Sectors include Retail, Loyalty, Wholesale Combining the skills and knowledge of Management Accounting with technical capabilities in SQL and Business Intelligence Software including Power BI, Google Data Studio, Tableau We provide an end-to-end service from raw data through to actionable insights. We bolster your team and help to upskill from recruitment support to training Unlocking the value from your data Show less



DeeperThanBlue (Ltd)

• United Kingdom
• IT Services and IT Consulting
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Principal Analytics Consultant

  • Sep 2021 - Present

  Greater Sheffield Area Working with DeeperThanBlue Analytics as a contractor, supporting the clients that I have built strong working relationships with and continuing to provide trusted proven advice Working on exciting projects across a range of industries. Helping organisations get the best from their investments in BI and data warehouses. Contributing to the DeeperThanBlue Analytics development team for exciting products like the Retail Performance Management (RPM) system. And continuing to… Show more Working with DeeperThanBlue Analytics as a contractor, supporting the clients that I have built strong working relationships with and continuing to provide trusted proven advice Working on exciting projects across a range of industries. Helping organisations get the best from their investments in BI and data warehouses. Contributing to the DeeperThanBlue Analytics development team for exciting products like the Retail Performance Management (RPM) system. And continuing to help build the Analytics community from its Sheffield base with the Business Analytics Forum (#BAF) and on to a wider national audience. Working with an excellent group of speakers and the DeeperThanBlue analytics team to show what can be achieved when the right people, processes and technologies are working in harmony unlocking value from business data

• Head of Analytics - DeeperthanBlue Analytics

  • Apr 2018 - Aug 2021

  Sheffield, United Kingdom Using my deep experience in the retail industry, I joined DeeperThanBlue to create the analytics practice, from launch to an established practice with long-standing client relationships within three years I was the driving force around both attracting new clients with strong marketing content and engagement and delivering customer satisfaction through the delivery of successful projects During this time I developed strong working relationships with clients such as G4S, 2 Sisters Food… Show more Using my deep experience in the retail industry, I joined DeeperThanBlue to create the analytics practice, from launch to an established practice with long-standing client relationships within three years I was the driving force around both attracting new clients with strong marketing content and engagement and delivering customer satisfaction through the delivery of successful projects During this time I developed strong working relationships with clients such as G4S, 2 Sisters Food Group, and Glencore. Delivering successful projects that ranged from BI migrations, database design and build, anomaly detection systems through to supporting existing users on SPSS / IBM Watson Studio machine learning models I was also a driving force in the creation and development of the Business Analytics Forum in Sheffield, shaping the topics, co-ordinating speakers and building a community to share ideas, support each other and improve business performance together



Sports Direct International

• United Kingdom
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Head of Operational Finance and Analytics

  • Nov 2010 - Apr 2018

  Shirebrook, Near Mansfield One of the key members of the senior management team, working closely with the board I created a new department and was the Head of Analytics and Operational Finance, the internal name for Financial Planning and Analytics (FP&A) This involved working very closely with Mike Ashley and the rest of the senior leadership team on a daily basis as business partners I was charged with strategic financial planning, multi-year planning for Sales, Margins, Inventory Cover, and cascading… Show more One of the key members of the senior management team, working closely with the board I created a new department and was the Head of Analytics and Operational Finance, the internal name for Financial Planning and Analytics (FP&A) This involved working very closely with Mike Ashley and the rest of the senior leadership team on a daily basis as business partners I was charged with strategic financial planning, multi-year planning for Sales, Margins, Inventory Cover, and cascading the controls down through the business to ensure that all departmental budgets were aligned to the headline budgets I was also directly involved with a broad range of initiatives to improve business performance, from range planning, pricing strategies, capacity planning Significant achievements included £100m de-stocking achieved from strong inventory controls, and alignment of buying budgets to corporate budgets. Controlling open to buy, markdowns and importantly in a fast-paced business physical capacity £20m pa savings from transforming the commercial understanding of the buying team, to control the buying of sizes, especially footwear £4m pa savings in energy usage from targeted investment and control of usage through the energy efficiency programme, using half-hourly smart meters to feed our business intelligence with alerts and triggers As well as driving the agenda for the Senior leadership team weekly meetings to focus on all areas for improvement I built a team of analysts, based upon a core skillset of either commercial finance or technical analytics and my role included the leadership of the team of analysts across the business, with representation within functional departments including Buying, Merchandising, E-Commerce, Marketing, and Finance. Fostering knowledge transfer and sharing of best practices. The aim was to drive confident decision-making as widely as possible, by becoming a data-driven organisation. Myself and my team were at the heart of this transformation

• Assistant Financial Controller

  • Jun 2008 - Nov 2010

  Working as the Deputy financial controller for the UK, within the largest sports retailer in the UK. Responsible for reporting, budgeting, commercial cost control, with Turnover of over £1Bn Coming from Morrisons, where I was actively involved in improving the business performance as a Finance Manager, it was a bit of a culture shock at Sports Direct. I had joined a team that solely focused on financial reporting, was bogged down by monthly and annual routines, and had very little… Show more Working as the Deputy financial controller for the UK, within the largest sports retailer in the UK. Responsible for reporting, budgeting, commercial cost control, with Turnover of over £1Bn Coming from Morrisons, where I was actively involved in improving the business performance as a Finance Manager, it was a bit of a culture shock at Sports Direct. I had joined a team that solely focused on financial reporting, was bogged down by monthly and annual routines, and had very little interaction with the rest of the business Naturally, I questioned this, only to be told by my boss that we were 'a service department' and didn’t get involved in the business. Almost warned off getting involved. I started going to lunch with other department heads in IT, Retail, Marketing, Ecommerce and began to chat to them about what they got from Finance. They were really engaging and keen to work more closely together Once they realised that we in Finance were well placed to help them do better by better information and supporting better controls we began to work on some initiatives, this spread to different parts of the business and small projects grew to larger ones I created an energy efficiency programme with the retail team to look at how we could better control energy usage, we used half-hourly smart meters to feed dashboards and show the daily, weekly usage profiles. Eventually establishing controls around what good looked like and monitoring exceptions. This resulted in £4m annual saving and improved in-store lighting a win-win This business impact was picked up and encouraged by the senior leadership team and I was asked to create a new department, leaving the old Finance team to their routines



Morrisons

• India
• Medical Equipment Manufacturing
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Finance Manager

  • Sep 1998 - Jun 2008

  £300m turnover food manufacturing subsidiary of Wm Morrisons Supermarkets PLC Head of finance in the subsidiary with group management reporting responsibility for other subsidiaries Highly varied and complex role covering all aspects of the finance and admin function in a fast growth environment