Gary Ward

Experience

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  Hasbro

  Apr 1994 - Feb 1996

  Business Development Analyst - Northern European Region

  - Produced category and brand forecasts, budgets and business plans on a rolling 18 month bottom-up business model for Toys, Games and Pre-school, including quarterly management review pack.- Worked as strategic analyst supporting on “Blue Sky” and acquisition projects, culminating in the acquisition of two smaller competitors (Waddingtons and Wizards of the Coast). - Worked with the Market Development Team to provide an objective financial review on working capital management; portfolio management & profit maximisation, and leverage of limited resources within the Market Development areas. Show less

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  KPMG UK

  Feb 1996 - Sept 2002

  Consultant, Business Advisory

  • Worked as part of a team engaged on UK manufacturing business transformation and recovery advice up to and beyond insolvency. Activities included analysing business streams to understand value drivers, identification of critical core competencies, and forensic analysis of financial statements.• Responsible for liaison with clients up to senior management level for the discussion of key strategic activities to deliver required objectives.• Developed critical understanding of UK automotive supply industry and the causes of distress and failure within the sector. Engaged by Ford Motor Company to assist in the development of a system to assist in highlighting the leading indicators of distress Show less

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  Ford Motor Company

  Sept 2002 - May 2010

  Manager – Supply Chain Risk Management

  As the levels of financial distress within the automotive industry increased and the levels of expenditure motor manufacturers incurred dealing with expensive insolvency events, Purchasing and Financial leadership within Ford of Europe determined for create a new function whose specific purpose was to: • Responsible for European organisations (Ford, Jaguar, Landrover, Volvo and Aston Martin) approach to supplier distress, which aimed to analyse the supply base for leading indicators of operational or financial stress and work with management and other automotive companies to develop and implement a recovery plan• Formulated the Ford European Approach to Managing Insolvency: An emerging trend introduced by insolvency practitioners in the UK and Germany involved leveraging large automotive organisation weakness with component suppliers excessively in an insolvency event required the formulation of a new approach which involved working much closer with IP’s, creditors and other customers to develop a more cost effective operating model which could provide for a better value proposition for creditors• Managing a team of 8 finance, purchasing and insolvency professionals developed an automated system to assist in the analysis of data used to highlight leading indicators of distress. This system was developed in conjunction with KPMG and Grant Thornton Show less

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  Barclays

  May 2010 - May 2012

  Director, Group Third Party Supplier Risk

  • Responsible for a team of 56 people tasked with developing, implementing and running a control framework used to identify, measure, and manage risks to the Bank as a result of engaging 3rd party suppliers to provide outsourced services.• Provide leadership, guidance and mentoring within both my organisation and with stakeholders on appropriate risk management activities, how these could be performed, and our risk mitigation expectations.• Developed a full design, testing and implementation plan to deliver the control framework across 34 Barclays organisations in 54 different countries over an 18 month period. This included regular update of status, challenges and achievements with key stakeholders. Show less

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  Deefer Diving Carriacou

  Feb 2012 - now

  Managing Director

  Challenged by the shareholders to develop and implement a holistic transformation plan for an aquatic tourism and training organisation based in Carriacou, Grenada. The organisation had stagnated for 10+ years and was constantly teetering with insolvency. The requirements from the shareholders were to realign the organisation with the post depression economy, make the business 'recession proof' and aggressively drive growth.The key product of the organisation was SCUBA diving training and recreational diver services - a highly commoditised service in an over subscribed market. Key to success was the ability to differentiate the product offered by the organisation through service excellence and also to broaden the appeal into different potential market segments.Targets for the first three years of leadership set by the shareholders included: - Deliver 100% revenue growth- Deliver industry leading ROI- Achieve a clear #1 by market share/revenue on the island and break into top 5 diving training organisations within the wider Grenada/Grenadines region.- Expand the market demographic to mitigate the effects of economic downturn in the traditional tourism market to the island.These objectives were all successfully exceeded within the first 36 months. Show less