Chief Financial Officer for four organizations at Jewish Federation of Ottawa, Soloway Jewish Community Center, Jewish Community Foundation, Jewish Community Campus of Ottawa (2021-07 – 2025-05)
- Spearhead and guide teams to achieve success
- Revitalize financial systems to enhance reporting capabilities
- Implemented EFT payment process, reducing reliance on cheques
- Conduct training sessions on forecasting and budgeting
- Deliver comprehensive budget presentations at board meetings for four separate boards
- Review tax returns for charitable organizations in Canada
- Introduced payment authorization process with MS Forms and MS Power Automate, increasing efficiency
- Developed a cross-platform Leave Request, Approval, and Tracking system
- Streamlined budgeting process across all entities
- Oversee ERP transition for two of the organizations
- Responsible for Finance, Human Resources, and Information Technology
- Drive modernization and efficiency improvement across multiple departments
Author - Wrote Three Books at Author (2019-10 – 2021-06)
The Definitive Chief Financial Officer, The Principles of Highly Successful Nonprofits, and The Beginners Guidebook to Investing
CFO, Partner at Green Bridge Consulting (2018-10 – 2021-07)
- Financial advisor to individuals and entities
- Working with creators of online businesses
- Start-up company
- Learned about creating websites
Director of Finance at International Rice Research Institute – CGIAR Group (2015-09 – 2018-10)
Lead finance team with one vision
- Reduced deficit from an estimated $ 11 M to $ 2.5 M in 2016
- Reduced inefficient processes for a savings of approximately $3 M
- Worked with scientists to reduce budget, increase efficiencies and maintain output, all while saving about $ 6 M
- Completely overhauled financial systems within the first year, this led to better financial monitoring and reporting
- Introduced a proper forecasting system to be better able to predict financial outcomes, leading to a significantly improved budgeting system
- By revamping the financial systems, it was now possible to determine which divisions were keeping on track with their budget and which were not
- Created a tracking system to ensure budgets are spent on set targets
- Ensured financial vision was met, minimize financial risk by ensuring funding exposure was minimized and the amount of unfunded costs would be at an acceptable level
- Train staff to be able to meet client needs and exceed them
- Consistently delegate to staff once they have mastered the needed skills, this ensured staff were constantly improving and kept motivated
- The chairman of the finance committee (a board member) commented, that what we had accomplished, he did not think was possible
Regional Financial Controller at International Finance Corporation – World Bank Group (2009-04 – 2015-08)
- Prepare reports on profitability for both Africa Department and review and preparation for Africa and Latin America and Caribbean super-region
- Prepare financial statements based on our investment portfolio of approximately $7 B and an investment pipeline of approximately $ 3 B per annum
- Analyzing and advising on equity portfolio performance of $ 2 B
- Reviewing trends on performance and advising on actions needed to take to improve performance
- Improvements suggested were to give out larger loans as the smaller loans yielded less profit, focus on long term finance and away from trade finance, focus on equity investments, and overall suggestion to take more risk as this will yield more dividends
- Responsible for maintaining strong fiduciary, financial, and internal controls within Africa Department
- Preparation and monitoring of overall budget in Africa and have maintained a 99% accuracy with our IS budgets
- Acted as Africa and Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Budget coordinator for two years and was reviewed by my peers as the best-coordinated budget coordinator for this function
- Review budgets from all sources of funds including Trust funds, to ensure reasonable and accurate
- Managing a diverse team from across different countries and cultures, ensuring job satisfaction and career growth
- Prepared the super-region (Africa and LAC) budget during FY12 which received rave reviews and the Vice President said it was the best he had ever presented
- Successfully managed the largest region in IFC with a very small staff size, workload to size ratio twice as efficient as the average region in IFC
- Prepared quarterly reports for both Africa and LAC on profitability, economic capital, efficiency, pipeline, portfolio, and Advisory services
Senior Resource Management Officer at International Finance Corporation – World Bank Group (2004-03 – 2009-04)
- Review financial function and financial controls then made recommendations for improvements
- In charge of Human Resources, Information Technology, Finance, and Metric & Evaluation
- Prepare monthly reports for Country Program Managers
- Prepare quarterly financial reports and annual reports for our donors
- Enhance metrics and evaluation of projects performance
- Review in-house system called Project Tracking Monitoring and Reporting System (PTMRS), work with IT to enhance the system
- Trained staff in basics of accounting up to more advanced accounting levels
- Created mini-COSO function in Region to ensure smoothly running internal control system
- Reviewed Procurement systems to ensure that controls are efficient and effective, instituted changes towards the end of second-quarter FY07, results are already quite positive. Worked closely with HQ Procurement team to ensure the highest level of standard, received very high praise for our system in place
- Created a positive and nurturing work environment, where staff's strengths are maximized
- Worked closely with Headquarters to ensure any potential changes they are planning will not negatively affect our systems and vice versa
- Received the highest performance on a COSO, during the controllers' review in mid–FY2005
Chief Financial Officer at Commission for Real Property Claims of Displaced Persons and Refugees (CRPC) (1998-07 – 2004-03)
Project funded and administered by the UN, USAID, EU
- Prepared monthly, quarterly and annual statements for all donors, CRPC usually has between nine to fifteen donors at any one time
- Reviewed and authorized all payments
- Supervised financial staff in fourteen offices centered in the Balkans and in Western Europe
- Ensured adherence to international accounting standards as well as standards put in place by donors, such as USAID, BPRM, DOS, and EU
- Reviewed and made necessary changes to the accounting system in place. These changes led to better trust and understanding from auditors and donors
- Increased revenue from $4.3 M to $6.9 M, mainly due to better financial management and acceptance from donors, within the first year of becoming Director
- Increased profitability by improving cash flow and enabling us to invest in term deposits and by decreasing expenses without decreasing output
- KPMG auditors noted a remarkable improvement over the whole financial structure and controls over the first six months that I took over as Director of Finance. Auditors remarked that in one year, we moved from one of their most difficult audits where controls were very weak to one of their top clients with one of the strongest control environments
Financial Manager at International Rescue Committee (IRC) (1996-11 – 1998-03)
- Reviewed internal controls at different sites across Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Revamped Sun System Database procedures to ensure consistency and reliability of financial information going into the system
- Reviewed actual financial information to budgets to ensure we are in step
- Designed new reports through our Sun System Database to meet the needs of upper management and our coordinators at our different sites
- Ensured cash flow problems would not occur, by requesting cash needs of all sites and ensuring head office sends money to us on a timely basis
Senior Auditor at Coopers & Lybrand (1995-11 – 1996-03)
- Reviewed work of auditors and lead audits
- Trained other auditors on the principles and procedures of auditing
- Planned audits, including staffing, reviewed significant audit areas, reviewed timing, performed overall risk assessment
- Reviewed audits with the senior manager in charge and the partner in charge
- Prepared corporate tax returns for audit clients
Manager at Anna Fruchter, C.A. (1993-01 – 1995-02)
- Promoted to Manager after six months and put in charge of all staff
- Planned audits and reviews
- Updated all computer programs and debugged new versions of tax return programs such as Dr. Tax and Tax Prep
- Trained junior and intermediate accounting proper auditing techniques
- In charge of the tax department, which included all personal and corporate tax returns and the Goods and Service Tax, and all research associated with these taxes
