Steve has over twenty years of experience in leadership roles in accounting, finance, operations and database technologies in a variety of industries. He also served in advisory and consulting roles as Chief Financial Officer, Director of Accounting and Controller. Steve has also provided business consulting and created complex integrated financial models for large global corporations such as National University of Singapore, British American Tobacco, BBVA Bancomer, Acciona Energy, Education Corporation of America, Sara Lee, Kraft Foods, Protegrity and AT&T.
His accounting and financial expertise include standard costing, variance analysis, cost drivers and cost allocation methodologies. The roles Steve has held has led to expertise in accounting, financial analysis, developing and improving financial processes, directing audits, leading accounting and systems project teams, risk mitigation and analysis, ensuring compliance, implementing systems, and significantly improving operational efficiencies and organization performance and reporting.
He has extensive experience in implementing ERP systems, budgeting, planning, forecasting, data warehousing, and report design and distribution. Steve has a background in data warehousing design, data gathering approaches and automated/self-service reporting. Steve has been hands on with Microsoft databases, reporting and data extraction tools. Coupled with Steve’s knowledge of Dynamics AX, Oracle and Sage ERP systems, accounting and reporting requirements and financial and operations analysis, Steve has created holistic solutions for an organization’s business intelligence needs.
Steve other notable professional accomplishments included:
Developing a financial analytics model to improve the efficiency of an $11 billion U.S. company with Canadian mining operations. The tool we develop provides the capability to determine when to open various mines to manage operating, logistics and taxation costs. The project is ongoing and will evolve as the company integrates the modeling tools into its budgeting and forecasting projects;
Serving as the lead design and financial modeling resource to create an estimating and quote management application for a $2 billion dollar multinational company that provides automated warehousing and material handling solutions. The multi-phase project required extensive data research and interviews across multiple departments to determine data requirements across multiple engineering disciplines and financial stakeholders. The resulting application converts 35 FTE’s from low value estimating activities to high value solution development and reduces the estimating time from three weeks to three days, a 5X improvement reducing costs by millions;
Serving as financial advisor to a $5 million medical device manufacturer developing a strategic plan to implement new accounting, CRM and forecasting systems.
Prior to joining BlackBriar, Steve served as CFO for a Fast Assets, Inc., a $40 million electronic refurbishing and reseller directing the accounting and finance functions for this company with high transaction volumes. He implemented forecasting, cash management and financial reporting tools to improve job costing, liquidity forecasting and management and timeliness of financial reporting.
Prior to Fast Assets, he served as Director of Finance for an $80 million medical equipment manufacturing and sales company leading implementation of Dynamics AX ERP. This project required cross department coordination for configuration, testing, training and user acceptance. The ERP implementation included manufacturing, materials resource planning, financial, inventory, shipping and integration into proprietary software. This project was accomplished while still maintaining day-to-day accounting, audit and operational responsibilities.
Creating a financial, operational and production planning model for Douwe Egbert, a coffee extract manufacturer and parent company of Sara Lee resulting in over $500,000 savings per production run.
Crafted a business development tool for Johnson Controls utilizing disparate information from multiple departments (engineering, equipment suppliers, accounting, inventory, and human resources) and synthesize data into a comprehensive tool to allow energy reduction consultants to model the cost savings and payback, including financing options, to large organizations. The financial tool tracked costs variances, performance against contracted results and store the data for future use in similar proposals.
As CFO of a reverse logistic firm, Steve spearheaded the creation of a data warehouse and business intelligence solution. This led to deeper understanding of product line, sales and supply channel and customer profitability. The solution is heavily depended on to this day for managing the financial analysis and well-being of the firm.
Steve’s career started with PriceWaterhouseCooper and continued with audit experience with a large regional accounting firm where he focused on middle market companies in manufacturing, higher education, natural resources, and professional services.
Education and Certifications
• Master of Science in Accounting (Summa Cum Laude) – University of Southern Maine
• Bachelor of Science in Accounting (Summa Cum Laude) – University of Southern Maine
• Certified Public Accountant, State of Maine