Helping executives create financially intelligent systems driving business performance and strategy execution for growth and impact
BOOK YOUR PRIVATE STRATEGY CALLFinance For The Now
with Natalia Vashkovets-Mawby
Most businesses don’t realise that they are leaking cash and holding back their customers from doing more business with them. It pays to know how to allocate resources and optimise systems to multiply results and sustain growth.
As a Growth CFO and Information Strategist with 20+ years in the field, I help privately owned businesses from $10m to $200m in annual revenue to upskill their senior leaders so that they can optimise and scale their business with financial intelligence and impact and deliver on strategic growth plans and multiply their company value.
I’m passionate about helping finance professionals to become real impact players and support executives to influence results and returns in the businesses they serve.
MY JOURNEY
20+ YEARS OF HELPING BUSINESSES AND TEAMS TO FIND RESOURCES AND ENGINEER INFRASTRUCTURES TO SPARK RETURNS AND SUSTAIN GROWTH
Over my 20+ years spent in various corporations, I have come to appreciate the forces driving the successes and failures of organisations. The learning curve was steep and my toolbox of principles and methods was filling fast. Those methods have not come from the academic research and consulting of clients but from immersing deep into organisations while taking them to their next level. I’ve been on cash rollercoasters, in system debacles, and encountered my own glass cliffs with full turnarounds. I also know what it feels like to see great improvements at the bottom line coming from personal and team efforts. I’ve learned how to pull things together when everything seems to be falling apart and when the future is rosy but the present is too ugly for those looking for quick gains.
MY EXPERTISE IS BUILT IN BUSINESS PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS, SCALING UP, AND BUSINESS TRANSFORMATIONS
The journey has been intense and there were successes and failures along the way but some things have always worked. I ended up with a personal toolbox stress-tested in high-pressure, high-risk, and high-growth environments. I focus on business infrastructure and return on resources as the most effective levers to sustain growth and protect profits.
Reflecting back on my journey I feel it is time to give forward and open up the toolbox for those who can use my simple but effective playbooks with extra bells and whistles added over time.
WHAT IF THERE WERE A SYSTEM TO TUNE UP YOUR BUSINESS PERFORMANCE, TURN YOUR BUSINESS AROUND, SPEED UP GROWTH, INCREASE VALUATION OR OPTIMISE YOUR STRATEGY EXECUTION?
WHY SHOULD YOU TRUST ME?
Here are some examples of the companies that did
COMPANY 1
70 employees | Growth from $7 to $14m in 18 months
BIGGEST CHALLENGE: Achieving profitable growth
HAND DEALT
- Newly implemented CRM, ERP and payroll systems with multiple teething issues
- The second year of suffering profitability with a further trend down
- No visibility around future revenues past 3-4 months ahead, unpredictable profitability
- Accumulated debts
- Absence of internal financial reporting
- Legacy accounting issues on the balance sheet
- Shoe-string budget
PROs:
Young and ambitious team
High-performance culture
RESULTS BASED ON DIRECT AND INDIRECT TEAM EFFORTS:
AFTER 6 MONTHS
- New forecasting model reliably estimating revenue and profitability
- New metrics, new targets for production and sales
- Meaningful financial reporting for shareholders, senior management and staff
- Regular collaboration around strategic goals and financial planning forward at the executive level
AFTER 12 MONTHS
- Full turnaround of revenue and profitability
- Strategic revenue and profitability planning in place
- 12-months forward performance visibility
- Regular collaboration around strategic goals, key metrics, and future performance at all levels of the organisation
AFTER 21 MONTHS
- Clearance of all debts
- Clearance of all system and accounting legacy issues
- Revenues almost doubled, profitability outperformed highest expectations by 30%
- A cohesive and well-informed leadership team
COMPANY 2
650 employees | Growth from $115 to $180m in 24 months
15 locations nationally
6 international subsidiaries
BIGGEST CHALLENGE: Infrastructure to match the size of the organisation without losing profit margins
HAND DEALT
- Outdated technology with serious system integrity issues
- Disorderly financial records
- Incidental international expansion across 6 countries
- Numerous compliance issues and material international risks
- Underskilled, underlead and underresourced finance and IT teams
PROs:
Australian icon
Hard-working, loyal and inspirational people
Consistent 20-25% annual growth and profitability
Wonderful cashflows
Innovative market-leading product
Potential for a great international success story
RESULTS BASED ON DIRECT AND INDIRECT TEAM EFFORTS:
HAND DEALT IN DETAIL
- Outdated technology across all locations nationally and at the overseas manufacturing facility (all from Wi-Fi to system applications), serious data integrity issues in all three main head office systems (ERP, payroll and POS), severe system bugs in both newly implemented ERP and payroll software, continuous IT support issues across all locations nationally, outdated phone system with a very costly security breach, insufficient security over customer and company data
- With the average volume of 350,000+ items sold annually, no central database for customer, order or pricing information, no CRM in place, unknown cost of goods sold, inappropriate intercompany invoicing with deep legacy issues, issues with revenue recognition, unreconciled ledgers, profitability unknown until annual accounts are prepared, permanently qualified audited financials, 80% of pricing in the POS system is incorrect, large FX exposure with no hedging in place, transfer pricing compliance risk, no control over profit margins
- Disorderly financial records for two newly established international subsidiaries, plans for three more international locations (new countries)
- Extensive manual processing in every department in every country, issues with customs documentation, overseas customs investigation of import/export operations, risk of large penalties and /or losses of import concessions for the manufacturing facilities
- Underskilled, underdeveloped, overworked and understaffed teams
AFTER 6 MONTHS
- Financials transitioned to accounting standards, audit qualification removed forward
- Completed global transfer pricing policy and related procedures, implementation process started with all subsidiaries
- Negotiated strategic technology contracts and partnerships
- Upgraded and restructured communications infrastructure and related tech without increases in corresponding costs
- High-level design of a new integrated ERP, POS and CRM with pricing and contracts locked in
- Product record’s restructured, on-the-fly automated flexible online pricelists
- FX hedging policy in place closing CNY and EUR exposure
- Restructure of a large out-of-the-money legacy FX instrument without incurring direct losses
AFTER 12 MONTHS
- Full implementation of the global transfer pricing policy across all subsidiaries
- Transition to full compliance for export documentation and intercompany invoicing
- Progress in negotiations with China customs authorities resulting in an agreed transition-to-compliance plan
- Margin structure and it’s forward planning are now in place
- Budgeting and profitability forecast models are in place
- Finalisation of the new POS system architecture and a partial go-live plan
- Automated pricing matrix is integrated with the POS
- Online dynamic pricelists are live and available for all retail locations, fully-featured POS trials are completed in selected stores
- Restructured IT functions and increased the IT team’s capabilities
AFTER 18 MONTHS
- Failed partial POS go-live attempt and roll-back to the old order system, major lessons around specific conditions in stores and required timing of changes
- Successful ERP (SAP) implementation for financials across all retail entities internationally and the head office (pre integration with POS and production)
- Successful implementation of the new payroll system (Attache) in the head office
- Completion of the full upgrade of communication lines, equipment, in-store and customer service tech across all locations and head office
- Harmonised financial reporting across all countries
- Consolidated global audits
- Transition to full compliance for export documentation without adding transit days to the delivery cycle
- Set up a new legal entity, infrastructure and reporting for Malaysia
- Clearance of complex legacy accounting issues across four countries
- International restructure study and demerger of Asian subsidiaries from the group
- 5% gross profit improvement attributable to negotiations, changes in pricing structures and controlled currency fluctuations
AFTER 24 MONTHS
- Set up a new legal entity for Canada
- Completed the international expansion blueprint (infrastructure setup and legal structures to optimise effects of taxation globally)
- Completed global banking and payment platform optimisation study in the context of the international footprint
- Full resolution of the legacy compliance issues in China
- Completed a CAPEX investment strategy study for funding of new production facilities in China
- Cleared all system and accounting legacy issues internationally
- Built, trained and mentored a cohesive finance team
COMPANY 3
25 employees | Growth from $50 to $350m in 7 years
BIGGEST CHALLENGE: Building a well-oiled machine while scaling up rapidly
HAND DEALT
- New start-up operating for under 12 months
- Perishable product with high traceability requirements
- Basic systems and tech
- Ambitious growth ahead, always insufficient resources to cover ever-growing demand
- Unpredictable commodity markets and large FX fluctuations at the time
PROs:
Backed by five global billion-dollar companies
Young power-team
Successful high-efficiency business model
Well-negotiated initial contracts and supplier relationships
RESULTS BASED ON DIRECT AND INDIRECT TEAM EFFORTS:
AFTER 6 MONTHS
- New financial ERP (Microsoft Dynamics GP) configured, tested and implemented
- Set up complex project hierarchy by customer by location by market segment
- Two operating databases restructured and consolidated into one to create a universal system set up to cater for any new future market
AFTER 12 MONTHS
- Set up all accounting and transactional processes
- Completed development of the data consolidation between the operating and financial systems
- Created major reports and analysis
AFTER 7 YEARS
- Supported successful rollout of business into multiple new regional markets across Asia and facilitated seamless transactional integration
- Control over USD75m inventory across five coldstore warehouses and in transit, and a USD120m trade finance facility
- Automated batch processing of AP, AR and granular allocations providing time savings and efficiencies with the ability to easily deliver a lot of details for analysis
- Only added 2 FTE in the finance team with the 7-times growth of the turnover
- Highly engaged high performing finance team with a very low turnover
I’m an Educator, Growth CFO, CPA, Information Strategist and
a Passionate business performance expert ready to share strategy execution frameworks and mastermind your way forward
I work with systems, information and leverage to help companies move to their next level
Book Your Private Strategy Call
Connect with me
IMPACT GOAL
Enhancing human intelligence at work
What people say
It ended up being a very profitable series of events
You’d been able to take something that had worked previously and come up with a new product for this. It ended up being a very profitable series of events and changed the way we saw how to use Masterclasses.
Andrew S., Managing Director
More consistent revenues
[Natalia made me feel] very comfortable. I felt that there was a strong level of trust, and Natalia worked hard to understand the fundamental issues and came up with effective solutions…this then allowed us to understand how we can have more consistent revenues.
Richard J., Director & Head of Technology