From audit fieldwork to group treasury in five currencies

Mandate

Make a project-based business financeable on terms that survive its own volatility, following the 2019 private-equity investment.

Outcomes

• Refinanced the S$95 million facility in 2022 with covenants that absorbed a RM14.2 million project loss
• Reduced Malaysian public-sector collection days from 171 to 109
• Restored the Vietnam centre's gross margin from 14 to 21 per cent
• Shortened the group monthly close from twenty-two to twelve working days

Decisions in context

I became group CFO a month after Kandimara Capital completed its investment, which brought a shareholder that reads cash flow closely and a board expecting forecasts it could hold management to. My first task was a monthly close that four country teams could deliver on the same basis. The larger question was how a project business could borrow on terms that would survive its own bad quarters. The 2022 refinancing, the acceptance desk in Kuala Lumpur and the wage-linked rate reviews in Ho Chi Minh City all came from that question. I report to the chief executive, attend every board and committee meeting, and remain an executive director of our Malaysian subsidiary. I have disagreed openly with both the founder and our investor; the board has supported me on some points and not others, which is how it should work.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; seeking one compatible independent directorship with the board's consent.

Mandate

Bring project control and cash discipline to the largest operating subsidiary and build finance for a new delivery centre.

Outcomes

• Introduced a monthly estimate-to-complete review for fixed-price contracts above RM5 million
• Built finance, payroll and intercompany pricing for the Ho Chi Minh City centre with external advisers
• Managed the change from goods and services tax to sales and service tax in 2018
• Appointed executive director of the Malaysian subsidiary in 2016

Decisions in context

Ravendara's founder hired me to make the Malaysian subsidiary's project numbers dependable. I started with a monthly estimate-to-complete review for every fixed-price contract above RM5 million, chaired jointly with the delivery head, so that changes in remaining effort reached the accounts in the month they were known. In 2015 we opened a delivery centre in Ho Chi Minh City, and I built its finance function, payroll and intercompany pricing with advisers who knew the Vietnamese rules better than I did. Malaysia introduced goods and services tax in 2015 and replaced it with sales and service tax in 2018, and both changes ran through our contract billing. My appointment as an executive director of the subsidiary in 2016 gave me statutory responsibility for its accounts and taught me how differently a director reads a paper from the person who wrote it.

Reason for the move

Asked by the board to become group CFO when the private-equity investment completed.

Mandate

Produce a regional result the parent could trust and explain margin movement by client and delivery location.

Outcomes

• Cut the regional close from fifteen to nine working days
• Introduced margin reporting by client and delivery location
• Documented how wage increases eroded fixed annual rate cards

Decisions in context

Corvalith moved me to Singapore and into a different economic model. Its clients bought engineering capacity under annual rate cards, delivered from Manila and Ho Chi Minh City, and the regional result combined five currencies every month. My team of fourteen consolidated the region for an Australian parent whose finance director wanted margin explained by client and by delivery location rather than as one regional figure. That analysis showed something the sales team had sensed but not measured: wage increases in the delivery countries were eroding fixed rate cards faster than currency movements, and hedging addressed only the smaller exposure. I presented that finding to the parent in 2012. It changed how renewals were priced, although slowly. The role also taught me to work across a functional reporting line without losing the trust of the local managing director I sat beside.

Reason for the move

Wanted responsibility for a whole finance function in a business that delivered projects as well as services.

Mandate

Put a financial view of payment terms, bonds and contract risk into every significant bid.

Outcomes

• Built a register of performance bonds and retention sums across all live contracts
• Added a financing charge for payment timing to bid pricing
• Reviewed about forty bids a year with sales and delivery leads

Decisions in context

Bid finance placed me between the sales team, which needed a competitive price, and the finance director, who needed the company to be paid. Public-sector and utility tenders came with performance bonds, retention sums and payment schedules tied to acceptance certificates, so a bid's real cost depended on events after delivery. I built a register of every bond and retention and began charging each bid for the time between completing work and receiving cash. We lost some tenders on price because of it. We also won one I should have priced higher, a state-agency system whose final acceptance came fourteen months late. That contract taught me more than any of the bids we lost. By 2009 I reviewed about forty bids a year and wanted a role that combined that commercial view with responsibility for a whole regional result.

Reason for the move

Recruited to Singapore for a regional controller role in an outsourcing business.

Mandate

Keep project revenue, cost and billing consistent with the real progress of delivery.

Outcomes

• Produced monthly cost-to-complete reports for nine fixed-price contracts
• Reconciled milestone billing with acceptance status on each project
• Joined technical reviews to test estimates of remaining effort

Decisions in context

Merbalang hired me because it had a project in Jakarta and needed a project accountant who could work in both countries' paperwork. I stayed in Kuala Lumpur after that project closed. My job was to report, each month, how much of each fixed-price contract was complete and what remained to be spent. I learnt quickly that the percentage is only as honest as the estimate of remaining effort, and that an engineer's optimism becomes reported profit within a month. I began attending technical reviews so that I could ask about estimates in the engineers' own terms rather than challenge them from a spreadsheet. By 2002 I had two project accountants working with me. The role gave me the habit I still rely on most: treating the estimate to complete as the most important number in a services company's accounts.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead bid and contract finance.

Mandate

Complete audit fieldwork to the engagement partner's standard and identify matters needing partner judgement.

Outcomes

• Led fieldwork on eleven statutory audits as a senior
• Prepared going-concern working papers for clients with foreign-currency borrowings during 1998
• Trained new associates in stock-count and receivables procedures

Decisions in context

I joined Sentanaya & Rekan straight from university and spent my first eighteen months on stock counts, receivables confirmations and bank reconciliations. Then the currency crisis of 1997 and 1998 changed every engagement. Clients with dollar borrowings and rupiah income found that a profitable year no longer protected them, and I prepared going-concern working papers for several of them under the engagement partner's direction. I did not make those judgements, but I saw how they were reached, and how much depended on which currency the cash arrived in and when. I became an audit senior in 1998 and led small field teams. By 1999 I wanted to work inside a business rather than review one afterwards, and a system integrator with a Jakarta project gave me that opening. The crisis years remain the most useful training I have had.

Reason for the move

Moved into industry to work on project finance for a system integrator.