Deborah Thomas

Experience

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  The Fuji Bank, Ltd

  Apr 1987 - Dec 1989

  Credit Analyst

  Served as assistant credit analyst for Fuji Bank syndicated lending to US and European clients. Reviewed loan documentation and financial performance and followed industry sector analysis to gauge client forward operational performance. Used Lotus macros to automate creation of widely circulated lending status report. Operated effectively in an all-Japanese language and cultural environment.

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  Yokogawa Medical Systems

  Jan 1990 - Jul 1993

  Management Trainee / Financial Analyst

  After completing GE's 2 year Financial Management Program and serving as an intercompany transaction analyst concurrently, worked as a business development analyst, performing financial modelling for 2 successful joint ventures in Taiwan and India. Served as a Japanese interpreter and translator during a multi-year legal case brought against GE by the Japanese government.

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  GE Medical Systems China

  Aug 1993 - Aug 1994

  Finance Transition Leader

  Transitioned accounting and financial analysis functions from Singapore to Hong Kong to support the creation of the Greater China region. Hired and managed a staff of 5 (Finance and IT) and performed budgeting and analysis work for China and Hong Kong. Supported the newly established Taiwan joint venture by splitting out joint financial assets and liabilities. Transitioned role to a Hong Kong local staff.

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  General Electric Corporate Audit Staff

  Sept 1994 - Sept 1995

  Corporate Auditor

  Worked on various financial and industrial audits - Kidder Peabody disposition, GE Lighting China manufacturing quality, Power Systems financial review, Medium Transformer quality review

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  GE Mediland Medical Systems

  Oct 1995 - Aug 1997

  Finance Manager

  As finance leader of this distribution and service joint venture, managed 7 accounting and IT staff to execute monthly and quarterly finance close processes and budgeting and analysis functions. Partnered with Sales and Legal to implement and monitor dealer compliance programs and customer travel & living programs. Provided support for sales related events, calculated sales compensation, and assisted with the set up of equipment leasing programs. Set up, managed and instructed the GE Financial Management Program in Taiwan Show less

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  Hitachi GE Lighting

  Sept 1997 - Dec 1998

  Manager Financial Planning & Analysis

  Served as Financial Planning leader for a newly established joint venture. Performed initial JV inventory transfer auditing, integrated key GE systems into the JV, and executed monthly financial reporting and analysis processes as well as GE budgeting procedures. Served as GE's Financial management program instructor and Japan representative.

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  GE Medical Systems Japan

  Jan 1999 - Apr 2000

  Finance Leader

  Provided transitional support to a newly established joint venture with NEC Medical Systems, including banking and legal establishment procedures, implementing GE financial accounting standards and budgeting processes, and serving as the financial planning leader before transitioning work to a Japanese local employee. Concurrently managed the GE Financial Management program in Japan, recruiting 20 trainees and implementing durable program administrative procedures

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  GE Medical Systems

  May 2000 - Oct 2003

  Oracle Financials System Conversion Intercompany Transacting Functional Stream Lead

  Functional stream lead for the design, development, testing and implementation of 4 interfaces between Oracle Financials and the GE intercompany billing mainframe system for 40 sites globally over a phased series of quarterly releases. Work included specifications and test script / test plan development, testing, and supervision of offshore developers. Additionally, performed detailed legacy to Oracle GL account code mapping, developed and tested user ADI templates and OFA reports and prepared and delivered detailed user training materials prior to and post implementation Show less

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  GE Money ANZ

  Feb 2004 - Aug 2005

  IT Financial Planning & Analysis Leader

  Managed the thrice annual budgeting process for the IT department, including developing and monitoring productivity programs and activity based costing analyses. Directly managed the procurement process for IT, cleaning up a multi-million dollar backlog of unpaid invoices due to a system conversion and setting up processes, controls and training to streamline the activities of all employees raising purchase orders and receipting goods and services. Implemented SOX planning and testing for IT. Served as the functional champion for the implementation of project cost accumulation functionality (Oracle Projects) across the organisation to ensure capex and opex were properly delineated and automatically accounted for for all projects - this software is still in use in the GE Capital ANZ PMO today. Show less

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  GE Capital International

  Sept 2005 - Sept 2016

  Project manage functional activities relating to quarterly and annual enterprise data expansion projects for regulatory reporting and internal analytics for the Asia and Europe regions, working closely with US and Europe based headquarters leadership. Partner with regional offices to support the enterprise data/business intelligence aspects of systems projects such as origination system replatforming. Generate detailed business requirements, test plans, test scripts, implementation plans and production verification plans, and both execute as well as oversee testing and go live phases. Liaise regularly with origination system and ETL development and production support staff to deliver data quality improvements across multiple data chains, with an emphasis on end user requirement capture, data analysis and system logic review. Coordinate monthly enterprise data submissions and related reconciliation and governance activities for the Asia region Show less Managed a team that varied in size between 20 and 30 staff following the integration of GE Money and GE Commercial Finance into GE Capital ANZ, delivering two key finance systems integration projects into production while maintaining business as usual finance systems support (Oracle Financials, Hyperion Planning/Closing). Worked closely with US based headquarters staff to obtain funding, engage resources, and carry out detailed planning and supervision of the migration from a local Oracle Financials instance to a global Oracle 11i instance in 2011, and then repeated the process with a migration of the planning and reporting systems from local tools to a globally supported Hyperion environment in 2012. These initiatives improved and standardised local financial accounting and planning/reporting processes while enabling considerable cost reductions as support and upgrade processes shifted to global COEs. Show less Managed a team of about 20, delivering Finance systems support (Oracle 9 /11i, Cognos Planning/ B/O Webi/ local datamarts), integration of finance systems workstreams into larger enterprise projects such as credit card product development, and delivering several enterprise level projects such as electronic travel and living processing and payroll consolidation. Spearheaded a multiphased project to automate high volume bank account reconciliations, including vendor negotiations and internal budget and application negotiations with US based headquarters staff, and delivered the project successfully after demonstrating via a detailed proof of concept that the locally preferred tool far outperformed the headquarters preferred application. Qualified as a Six Sigma Black Belt.Built up the Finance department business continuity plan and executed annual BCP testing Show less

  • Risk IT & Quality Leader

    Jan 2013 - Sept 2016

  • eFinance Leader

    Mar 2009 - Jan 2013

  • eFinance Leader

    Sept 2005 - Mar 2009
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  Endeavour Tools

  Sept 2016 - now

  Recruitment and Communications Project Leader

  Endeavour Tools imports and distributes over 9,000 products spanning automotive repair and diagnostic tools, air tools, and hand tools through professional trade channels in Australia and New Zealand. Sales have increased by 70% since 2017, leading to heightened pressure to move large volumes of increasingly sophisticated product through a small warehouse. In my role I have attacked inefficiencies that hamper the speed and accuracy with which product can move through the warehouse, and have pivoted to support a wide range of digital marketing efforts. My notable achievements have been:• Mastering the fundamentals of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, Filemaker, and the Neto eCommerce platform in order to create, manipulate and load product images, videos, and artwork to the website and to create specialised product labelling• Supporting key SEO activities by improving website product data, locating and loading missing images, branding supplier videos, translating supplier product related documentation from Chinese and Japanese into English, and creating a company facebook page that has attracted a younger demographic• Conducting clean-up, stock compacting, and bay rearrangement exercises that have yielded 14 extra bays and two extra racks of storage for fast moving product• Organising all aspects of the decommission of a 100 sq metre office and warehouse in Sydney, including all stock transfers, equipment shipment, labour hire, site remediation, waste disposal and cleaning• Eliminating packing bench inefficiency by rolling out process improvements including status cards for each pile of goods, forms for requesting credit note and label generation, and advance provision of labels• Designing an online, printable query detailing kit component SKUs, locations and quantities on hand to enable warehouse staff to quickly make up kits Show less

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  Pegasus International Group Pty Ltd

  Nov 2022 - now

  Special Assistant to Company Founder

  Pegasus International is a start-up company that has designed commercially viable, flight-ready flying cars for use in civil aviation, air taxi, and police applications. The company is now focused on promoting its products, developing customer, adjacent industry, and regulatory networks, and continuing research and development of further product generations, all the while preparing for scale manufacturing in Australia. My role is to assist the founder and managing director with English language related business communications involving promotional activities, investor relations, grant applications, and media and business contacts.My key contributions include organising the company’s successful exhibition at the 2023 Avalon Air Show, rewriting the company’s Constitution to be compatible with crowd source funding, creating the content and format of the company’s successful crowd source funding prospectus, and creating a suite of project documentation to support a grant application to the federal government’s Emerging Aviation Technology Partnership Round 2 program. Show less