Qualified Chartered Accountant and Finance Director with extensive experience in growing and crisis managing national and international companies. Up-to-date knowledge of accounting systems and practices, as well as tax and legal procedures in both Spain and the UK. Specialist areas include: systems design and management, business expansion and service diversification, revenue and profit maximisation, cost reduction, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, contracts and personnel.

 

Finance Director – Rayshark Group (Jul 2008 – present)

Multi-national dedicated to designing, developing and managing major web service sites.

• Responsible for the financial growth of eltiempo.es into the top weather website in Spain with over 1 million average daily visitors, monthly unique visitors of over 10 million and monthly advertising income of 200,000€.
• Conducted due diligence and oversaw the acquisition of hotels.es, one of Spain’s largest hotel booking websites, with subsequent responsibility for all corporate financial matters including contracts, personnel, bank, tax and legal.
• Designed, user-tested and optimised website software systems including credit card purchases, automated invoicing, photo approvals etc.
• Successful preparation and subsequent sale of eltiempo.es and hoteles.es

 

Finance Director/Joint Managing Director – Santa Ponça Country Club (2007 – 2008)

Leading private sports and leisure club in Mallorca with 65 staff and 1,500 members.

• Responsible for all financial matters including personnel, maintenance, equipment, IT etc.
• Designed and implemented a new accounting system, dramatically improved administrative systems, introduced financial controls and improved financial performance through a raft of tailored measures leading to savings of over 250,000€.
• Jointly managed a facilities expansion project costing over €1m.

 

Finance Director – Hospital General de Muro (2004 – 2006)

Major private hospital in Mallorca in severe financial crisis after ten years of annual losses.

• Designed and implemented a series of cross-departmental cost-cutting programs, better invoicing and debt collection and improved productivity processes.
• Implemented a new IT system for better patient reporting, reporting to insurance companies and direct requisition of laboratory analyses and X-Rays.
• Reversed a two-year period of insolvency and a €1m annual loss prior to my arrival to a profit of 400,000€. Helped prepare the hospital for subsequent sale.

 

Interim Finance Director – Various (2000-2004)

• Swiftcom (2002-2004): Established a financial consultancy company for UK and Spanish start-ups. Clients included: IAS, Quality Coatings, ICMAO, and SCL Ltd.
• Petrofac (2001-2002): Eight months stand-in reporting to the Managing Director. Successfully implemented an integrated accounting package including departmental and project costing, as well as a new payroll system for the 100 UK HO staff.
• Alliance Unichem Group (2000-2001): Nine months stand-in for the Director of Business Information and Analysis, reporting to the Finance Director. Led the team responsible for developing and implementing a corporate executive information system.
• Lloyd’s Register of Shipping (2000 – 2000): Managed the HO finance department of 70 staff. Led the replacement finance system for consolidating all group companies with remote access using Citrix (evaluation of SAP, Oracle, Agresso and JD Edwards).

 

 

Group Finance Director – Granherne Group / Halliburton (1987 – 2000)

International front-end and detailed engineering consultancy in the oil and gas industry.

• Responsible for all financially related matters from company inception until its subsequent merger with a large US corporation and then acquisition by Halliburton
• Managing the set-up of new subsidiaries and joint ventures in various locations around the world, including Oman, Australia Malaysia and the US.
• Managed the set-up of a new integrated management accounting and reporting system including payroll, personnel and timesheet control, sales invoicing etc.
• Director responsible for managing the finance department, contributing to company expansion from 30 staff and turnover of under £1m to an international group of 650 staff with annual turnover of £200m and annual profit of £10m.

 

Head of Accounting Development Unit – Midland Bank, now part of HSBC (1986 – 1987)

The Nº 1 bank in the UK at the time.

• Responsible for all of the major accounting systems developments within the Group.
• Developed a new financial consolidation system for all the group companies.
• Worked with an external software house to implement a Bank of England reporting system for all major banks.

 

Chief Management Accountant – British Airports (1980 – 1986)

Company responsible for running the seven major UK airports.

• Developed and implemented a group-wide computerised budgeting system.
• Project managed the selection and implementation of a multi-million pound project to update the airport management information systems (including financial, engineering capital and maintenance systems) in preparation for the privatisation of the business.
• Responsibility for producing the monthly group management and financial accounts.

 

Senior Manager - Hodgson Harris & Co, now part of Baker Tilly (1973 – 1980)

One of the top eight chartered accountancy firms.

• Trained to become a chartered accountant (ACA).
• Gained considerable experience in different size businesses from sole traders to large multi nationals.

Skills & Expertise

• Long experience of strategic planning and corporate financial restructuring to maximise profitability in both businesses experiencing growth and those in financial crisis.
• Top-level manager with long track record of decision-making skills.
• Profound knowledge and experience of company acquisitions, mergers and disposals (including due diligence), Data Protection Requirements, Implementation of Quality Assurance Standards (ISO) and Risk Prevention.
• Highly IT proficient including: Major UK accounting systems, Sage Logic Class and Contaplus (Spain), Microsoft Office, Google Adsense, Adwords, SEO and web-design.
• Excellent communication skills including: Norwegian (bi-lingual), Spanish (full professional proficiency), German (A-Level), and French and Mallorquin (basic).

 

Education

• Westminster School (4 A-Levels)
• Chartered Accountant ACA (1978)
• Chartered Tax Advisor ATII (1981)

 

Interests

A keen sportsman who particularly enjoys cycling and hiking. Now seeking new professional challenges in an ambitious, innovative and vibrant organisation.

For further information, please contact me at: michael@everington.co.uk