Russel Andre Gordon

• Collaborated with the central team during Business Change Assessment workshops to align local processes with global standards, and identify change impacts and associated benefits.
• Developed an end-to-end process impact assessment walkthrough with local and central teams, presenting these to leadership at predefined deployment milestones.
• Managed the RAID and Impact of Change Log, identifying action plans to guide the business through the transformation, ensuring the delivery of the global templates, and the realization of planned benefits.
• Executed user acceptance test (UAT) scenarios, ensuring validation of critical business processes within the SAP environment.
• Coordinated the mapping of business users to the SAP roles, recommending business role or structure changes where necessary, e.g., for Segregation of Duties.
• Worked alongside training coordinator and delivered end-user training.
• Ensured the achievement of data milestones by collaborating with key business users on data cleansing activities and aligning master data and business processes to provide clear guidelines to the data cleansing team.

• Finance Business Partner to the Logistics and Inventory Planning team.
• Actively involved in planning and forecasting, ensuring the timely completion of activities.
• Analysis, reporting, and budgetary control of logistic costs for the South African business.

Freight In/Out.

Warehouse and Distribution (W&D)

Review and approve all POs related to logistics.

• Monitoring inventory valuation and weeks of cover (WOC).
• Analyzing demand forecasts vs. stock on hand, mitigating the risk of write-off.

This includes short-dated inventory.

• Credit note audits: ensuring credit notes are processed at the correct pricing.
• Annual standard cost setup of an imported portfolio of products.
• Review and Analysis of Purchase Price Variances (PPV) and the Impact of FX.
• Assist in gross margin enhancements, COGs reduction projects.
• Month-end closing was coordinated to ensure adherence to the month-end close procedures, as well as timely and accurate financial reporting.

• Finance Business Partner to the Sales Director, Head of Key Account Managers, and Revenue Growth Manager.
• Monitor trade investment across all retail customer accounts.
• Prepare monthly trade investment forecasts by customer accounts, highlighting potential risks and mitigating plans through reviews with the country General Manager, Finance Director, and Sales Director.
• Trade Investment (TI) Budget Control.
• Review dormant purchase orders that are over 6 months old.
• Review and approve P&L on all "Value Added Products", "On Invoice," and "Clearance Deals." Checking ROI and providing recommendations.
• Month-end closing, ensuring timely and accurate reporting.

• Ensure standard costs in the bill of materials are updated annually in alignment with the latest manufacturing practices.
• Maintain standard cost on the ERP system, JDE.
• Perform cost estimates on New Product Developments (NPDs).
• Vetting and tracking of cost-saving initiatives.
• Perform variance analysis on cost and material variances. Identifying risks and discussing mitigating plans with business partners.
• Finance Business Partner at Inventory Stock Counts.

Ensure controls are in place, and that the integrity of the stock count is not compromised.

• Review weekly cycle counts on key raw materials with the Factory and Warehouse Manager.
• Monitor, analyze, and report any inventory adjustments.
• Monitor inventory stock levels in order to mitigate the risk of write-off related to slow-moving and obsolete materials (raw and pack).
• Ensure provisions are raised for stock that is at risk of write-off.
• Reconcile inventory movement between the factory and the finished goods warehouse.
• Collaborate with the operations team to ensure all work orders are closed in a timely manner.
• Monitor weeks of cover for all key materials.
• Monitor and check all open purchase orders related to materials (raw and pack).
• Reporting - Factory Operating Statement - Provide reporting commentary on factory performance.

• Factory Fixed Costs (Indirect Overheads) Budget Control.
• Ensure forecast accuracy on Factory Fixed Costs.
• Drive the monthly connect related to factory fixed costs, discussing overspends and mitigating plans to reduce costs.
• Purchase Price Variance (PPV) analysis and business partnering with the Raw and Pack Procurement department.
• Business partner with the factory head of projects on all projects impacting capital investment (CAPEX).
• Ensure all capital investments are financially vetted and approved by the leadership team within the business.
• Maintaining and tracking of Assets Under Construction spend mitigates the risk of overcapitalization.
• Ensure that assets are capitalized once they are commissioned into production.
• Review Fixed Assets and Depreciation schedules on a monthly basis.
• Physical verification and tagging of assets.

• Perform monthly reconciliations of cash books (five bank accounts).
• Maintain reconciling items for 30 days.
• Preparation of Monthly Cash Flow Forecasting.
• Management of cash flow to optimize interest returns.
• Track forecasted FX spending on a quarterly basis.
• Ensure FX hedges are aligned with FX spend, and in line with company policy and Reserve Bank requirements.
• Execute FD (Financial Director)-approved FX hedges with banks.
• Monthly reconciliation and revaluation of GBP, USD, and EUR bank accounts.
• Calculate and prepare monthly VAT returns (SARS e-Filing).
• Analyses of commercial fixed costs and monthly connections with functional directors.
• Maintenance of the Chart of Accounts on JD Edwards.
• Processing of monthly journal entries.
• Assist with internal and external audit queries.
• Maintenance of the monthly KPI scorecard health check.
• Assist in the month-end closure of the General Ledger.
• Calculation and submission of royalty calculation.
• Banking Platform Administrator.
• Ensure banking mandates are maintained as per company policy.

• Business partnering with brand managers and management of marketing spend.
• Tracking marketing spend as a percentage of net revenue and providing commentary on brand performance.
• Assisting brand managers with brand P&Ls.
• Tracking the aging of marketing spend accruals.
• Assist with forecasting and planning of marketing spend over forecasting periods.
• Preparation and distribution category (brand) overview P&L post month-end.
• Processing of monthly and ad-hoc journals related to marketing spend.

• Reconciling sales revenue to the respective publications.
• Investigate variances in sales revenue.
• Analyze and allocate revenue earnings.
• Assist with month-end activities related to accruals and prepayments.

• High-volume invoice processing on AX Dynamics.
• Reconciliation of supplier accounts.
• Liaised with the Purchase Ledger (Accounts Payable) Supervisor and the Financial Controller on invoice queries.
• General Ad Hoc Duties

• General labourer work on a building construction sites.

• High-volume invoice processing related to foreign vendors (non-GBP invoices).
• Handled vendor account queries.
• Vendor account reconciliation.
• Liaised with internal departments on the aging of Purchase Orders.

• Till Bank Operator within a clothing department store.