Anna Nicholas

Experience

• 

  Deloitte U.S. India offices

  Jul 2012 - Nov 2013

  Tax Consultant
• 

  The Chocolate Box

  Aug 2014 - Sept 2016

  Promoted to the role of Operations Manager after demonstrating considerable leadership abilities as the Retail Manager for this rapidly growing food and beverage specialist, I was responsible for managing operations across seven retail outlets nationally, including the company’s corporate client base. This multifaceted role brought together all aspects of finance, HR, daily operations and strategic oversight – and as a result, I managed:• Procurement, supplier engagement, payment processing, and all associated quality assurance• Stock inventory and allocation across each store nationally, modelling consumer demand and forecasting sales accurately• Financial administration from commercial decision making to budget oversight, monthly reporting and accounting • Employee recruitment, onboarding, training and performance management in order to build high performance teams• Operating systems and processing, including stock distribution, order processing, shipping and third party logistics • Warehouse ordering processes, involving processing orders, monitoring stock levels and liaising with warehouse managers.In my time in the role, I led a number of high impact initiatives including establishing and implementing a new commercial strategy, which involved building consensus amongst a newly created team comprised of marketing and creative professionals, product development specialists and retail buyers. I was particularly proud of introducing a series of employee engagement initiatives that transformed the HR function, fostered high performance teams and resolved ongoing dissonance amongst team members . This dynamic role gave me an opportunity to demonstrate and consolidate my expertise across finance, operations and HR, bringing the three business disciplines together to create a unique leadership style. Show less Tasked with managing retail stores, online operations and all financial administration, in this role I led a team of 12 staff across the company’s largest flagship store and the online store. Initially engaged to manage all finance and accounting functions, my role rapidly expanded to encompass:• Leading teams in delivering quality customer service through the bricks and mortar and online stores• Managing corporate client engagement, developing retail solutions, ensuring quality assurance and managing complaints• Driving sales and promotional campaigns, leading and upskilling teams in implementing plans to meet ambitious sales targets • Establishing and maintaining SOPs and service delivery standards in order to achieve operational excellence• Developing and implementing client engagement strategies, from driving initial brand awareness to processing orders• Overseeing processing, packaging and distribution of all orders; liaising with logistics providers; ensuring quality outcomes.In my time in the role, I led a significant improvement in customer engagement, brand awareness and sales results that resulted in increased profitability within 12 months and exceeding targets by implementing a series of strategic and operational improvements. I also developed a strategy that reduced costs and increased customer satisfaction. Show less

  • Operations Manager

    Feb 2016 - Sept 2016

  • Retail Manager

    Aug 2014 - Sept 2016
• 

  Hammond Taylor

  Sept 2016 - Apr 2022

  Taking on the dual role of CFO and Operations Manager, which in turn evolved to become the COO position, my responsibilities included:• Leading the full accounting and finance function, with oversight of the annual budget, forecast revenue, market analysis, risk management and mitigation, and cost optimisation strategies.• Managing all financial administration, liaising with the senior leadership team and employees to gather key data and ensure operational compliance with relevant legislation and industry regulations. • Establishing reporting systems to provide greater transparency into individual employee and client operations, track outgoing costs against incoming revenue, identify client and market trends, and inform commercial decision making.• Leading initiatives to drive organisational growth, including developing and implementing marketing, client engagement and stakeholder relationship management strategies.In this role I had an opportunity to support and lead the company through periods of considerable growth and transformation. Working collaboratively with the senior leadership team, I established the finance function, operating systems, policies and procedures that provided the framework necessary to enable organisational growth. • Led a strategic initiative that optimised workforce planning and design through astute forecasting, making data-driven decisions and introducing workforce management frameworks based on analysing workflow peaks and troughs.• Led a series of financial initiatives to introduce financial rigour, including optimising and streamlining expenses, providing contingency finance for emergencies, and using reporting to provide insight into new business development initiatives. Show less Initially appointed as Office Manager, within a short period of time I was considered the Operations Manager with oversight for all financial administration and input into client engagement strategies, HR compliance, operational improvement and commercial decision making.I also enabled more accountable, transparent and astute decision making amongst the leadership team, which in turn directly facilitated the company’s rapid growth and profitability. In this role I was responsible for all financial administration, liaising with the senior leadership team and employees to gather key data and ensure operational compliance with relevant legislation and industry regulations. I was able to achieve this by introducing:• Business intelligence systems to capture data and generate reports, then used to identify workflows, determine costs for types of work programs and clients, and gain transparency across revenue and expenditure• Forecasting and modelling to identify and analyse internal and market trends, which in turn provided insight into operations, informed robust annual budgets and assisted in planning workflow and setting targets• Regular finance meetings to give senior leadership transparency across all costs and revenue, embedding financial discipline as a key operational imperative in all decision making across the business• Risk management and mitigation frameworks to assist the leadership team in business critical decision making.I developed the end to end the finance and accounting functions, replacing adhoc activities with robust operating procedures to ensure commercial best practice, processes to ensure financial governance, and automated systems to streamline operations. Show less

  • Chief Financial Officer

    Mar 2019 - Apr 2022

  • Operations Manager

    Sept 2016 - Feb 2019
• 

  Before You Dig Australia

  May 2022 - now

  Finance Manager