John Donnelly

Company Director, Chartered Accountant

Talent

London, Greater LondonMember since 19 January 2024

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About

Chartered Accountant (ICAS - 2007) and Chartered Secretary (ICSA - 2009) with nineteen years' experience in financial services (Funds, Private Equity and Professional Practice) across the United Kingdom, Bermuda and the Channel Islands.

Experienced leader across various divisions and functions throughout career in financial services, including operations, client service management, financial reporting and fund accounting, with largest remit covering five teams comprising over 35 professional staff, including three Vice Presidents, together with simultaneous matrix management of offshore teams in Poland, India, Singapore and KL. Overall, John is very experienced in managing international, culturally and geographically diverse teams for over a decade

Experience

In terms of Transition, Change and Program Management experience, at Citi there were significant elements of every role over my time there which focused on these functions.

For fund accounting, there was the offshoring project (from Edinburgh to Poland and KL) and establishment of new global target operating model, both of which were under my remit..
For retail reporting I was in charge of both the offshoring (from Edinburgh to India) as well as migration of multiple fund ranges from other TPAs to Citi, with work landing directly in the Shared Service Centre, as well as my team in Edinburgh.
The above required the onboarding (including active participant in hiring of) and oversight of training for c.20 Warsaw, c.15 India and c.5 KL
Furthermore there was the confidential offboarding of Edinburgh FTE run in conjunction with migrating work and FTE to the international jurisdictions. This was managed sensitively for the individuals concerned, whilst maintaining their engagement in the process as we set up Warsaw/KL ahead of wind down of Edinburgh team.
For client service management I had ownership of the service contract renegotiation (contract value was 8 figure of GBP revenue), which encompassed a full review of every service delivery. This was a significant project running over a number of years. Communication and project management across both internal and external vendors and stakeholders was key to delivery, as was the ability to understand the full scope of services across all service lines.

At Zedra my Group Operations role focus was on

integration of business unit acquisitions (Luxembourg and Curacao/USA)
standardisation of processes, controls and checklists
set up of the Shared Service Centre (Warsaw) for which I was responsible, with 5 jurisdictions (Curacao, Guernsey, Jersey, Singapore and USA) migrating work to Warsaw, and a 6th (Luxembourg) awaiting regulatory approval.
Jurisdiction prioritisation was required to ensure that BAU was stable prior to offshoring to Warsaw, this necessitated at points a changing of plan as a consequence of regulatory approvals (Luxembourg CSSF delays) and business demands (Singapore short term need following rapid onboarding of a new fund range).
Internal reporting to Zedra Group Board, as well as jurisdictional local boards (including Guernsey which I sat on as a Director) was fundamental to successful delivery of this project.