
Adriana Palma
Verified Expert in Management Consulting
Finance Expert
Álvaro Obregón, Mexico
Toptal member since September 1, 2022
An actuary and master in finance, Adriana led the credit portfolio rating process for 475 billion Mexican pesos of Banobras, an infrastructure development bank, redesigning the additional provisions methodology. She served as a CFO and accumulated an 18-year financial career with startups and all sizes of corporations. She's venturing out as a freelance to help multi-disciplinary clients achieve specific goals, including FP&A, treasury, fundraising, risk management, and performance attribution.
Career Highlights
Education Highlights
Certification Highlights
Case Studies
Expertise
- Budget Controls
- Budgeting
- Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)
- Financial Risk Management
- Performance Attribution
- Project Management
- Software Implementation
- Treasury Management
Work Experience
Financial Director | CFO
Innovacion Balmiz
- Coordinated the finance department, mainly in charge of corporate treasury, financial planning, accounts receivable, and accounting, centralizing the operation of 26 family-owned businesses.
- Ensured the application and implementation of policies and procedures, identified risks and established controls, improved practices, and promoted order for the family-owned businesses with the perspective of institutionalizing them.
- Attended to the requirements and audits of the authorities corresponding to previous years, as well as the 21 internal audits.
- Prepared a diagnosis of 26 companies and implemented their remediation plans to correct the accounting and financial aspects.
- Optimized the work team of 30 people in the finance department, evaluating functions, merging areas, and reducing payroll expenses by 40%.
- Implemented budget control; applied the payment process; ensured the integration of files for relevant or recurring payments; cut spending subject to liquidity restrictions; and consolidated and proposed a payment plan for accounts payable.
CFO
Automotriz Hermer, S.A. (Authorized Mercedes-Benz distributor /Grupo Hermes)
- Restructured financial and administrative departments (tax accounting, treasury, compliance, controlling, inventory, human resources, information technology, and anti-money laundering), achieving control by Grupo Hermes in just one year instead of two.
- Ensured compliance with anti-money laundering regulations and mitigated reputational and economic risks through the diagnosis, five-year remediation plan, staff training, policy development, and best practices such as hiring a Compliance Officer.
- Optimized the treasury by eliminating the authorization of paper payment requests, implementing more efficient controls in banking operations, staff training, delimitation of functions, and taking advantage of the system.
- Transformed the organizational culture, accompanied by the development of the soft skills of the personnel in charge of each area for the generation of high-level information and decision-making, responsibilities that they did not have.
- Provided attention to annual reviews of funding lines and formalization with favorable conditions.
CFO
Tigriada
- Led the development of the annual budget and the implementation of a payment process to control the budget, with the accomplishment of not overspending in 2021 and 2022 while working for a multiple-purpose financial institution Tigriada.
- Coordinated the parameterization of the SAFI Banking system as well as the reprocessing of financial, accounting, and tax information to solve delays and errors since 2019, ensuring compliance with the law in the first quarter of 2022.
- Contributed to the preventive measures of money laundering by implementing the cash recovery and funding processes from/to the branches of the company's bank accounts, accompanied by two technological platforms in 2021 and 2022.
- Hired and trained a high-performance team for the finance department and built the major areas, including accounting, treasury, planning, financial analysis, accounts payable, and administrative services.
- Contributed to the implementation of corporate governance as the finance and planning committee secretary, responsible for preparing and presenting reports to the board of directors.
Credit Manager | Portfolio Rating Manager
Banco Nacional de Obras y Servicios Públicos, S.N.C. (Banobras)
- Supervised the loan portfolio rating process of 475 billion Mexican pesos in accordance with the sole circular issued by the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), achieving zero audit observations.
- Coordinated the weekly issuance of follow-up reports on borrower obligations and guarantees and verified the use of loan funds, contributing to a 98% compliance rate of the 6,436 covenants by 2020.
- Reviewed interest rates charged to borrowers and instructed the application of penalties for non-compliance, carrying out 263 reviews in 2020 and recovering economic resources for the bank by correcting rates applied prior to my administration.
- Coordinated the implementation of the IFRS 9 international standard in relation to the loan portfolio rating process for all managements and directorates in the credit department, punctually complying with the bank's work plan.
- Led the modification of the methodology for additional credit provisions and received the approval of the Credit Directorate.
CFO
AU Capital and Subsidiaries
- Elaborated, presented, and received approval from the board of directors for the yearly budget. Supervised and delivered budgetary efficiency with no overdraft in 2018 and 2019 by establishing the payment process and budgetary controls.
- Obtained the ratings for the first time in 2018 as counterparty and servicer with HR ratings at the levels required to secure the necessary financing in only six months of work. I also coordinated the subsequent quarterly reviews.
- Led the implementation of the single circular for CNBV to present financial statements and determine provisions for credit portfolios to obtain financing from development banks, with successful implementation in December 2018.
- Raised funds from local and foreign financial firms in USD and MXN, where I demonstrated the ability to negotiate a term sheet and assisted in completing transactions by reviewing agreements.
Deputy Director of Financial Administration | Treasury and Trust Manager
Metrofinanciera
- Restructured and moved the treasury and trust management departments from Monterrey to Mexico City, reducing operational costs and operating risk and building a high-performance team.
- Negotiated the financial conditions of the company's existing credit lines to promote the reimbursement of expenses and deposits never before returned to the company because the trust agreements did not establish the dynamics of reimbursements.
- Automated the treasury payment process and increased efficiency in distributing money from trusts, establishing internal deadlines, management profiles, and security measures for the operation of bank portals, among others.
- Improved cash management through implementing a cash flow report considering the projections of expenses and capital advances to clients for their real estate projects, as well as establishing an investment policy and forex operations.
Portfolio Investment Performance Manager
Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social
- Prepared and received the approval of the Financial Investment Unit and the Financial Investment Commission of the annual proposals for evaluating the performance of the reserves and pension funds (160 billion Mexican pesos) from 2008 to 2015.
- Designed and implemented the performance evaluation module in analytics, automating the performance attribution process through benchmarks, charts, risk-adjusted indices, and comparative reports ranking the results.
- Implemented the comparative analysis regarding Afore investments by creating and using a proprietary index for investment companies specialized in retirement funds (Siefores) and exhibited the analysis quarterly or semi-annually from 2018 to 2015.
- Built the benchmarks internally for the institutional portfolios through the internal system and public indexes, reducing costs by bypassing intermediaries and redundant bidding processes.
Risk Manager | Risk Analyst
Afore Azteca
- Managed the financial risk and the investment regime of the five investment portfolios operated by the Siefores in accordance with the applicable regulations, achieving zero audit observations each year from 2005 to 2008.
- Developed, validated, and implemented the market risk calculation tool for regulatory value at risk, which was useful for anticipating deviations from regulatory limits and avoiding fines.
- Developed, validated, and implemented the consumption tool for web monitoring of the investment regime's limits, which was useful for risk and investment areas for intraday limit verification and correction of potential deviations.
Education
Master's Degree in Finance
Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) - Ciudad de México, México
Bachelor's Degree in Actuarial Science
Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) - Ciudad de México, México
Certifications
Approved Level I Exam of the Chartered Financial Analyst Program
Computerhouse School
Skills
Finance
Budgeting, Risk-adjusted Returns, Budget Controls, Corporate Treasury, Forecasting, Deal Analysis, Corporate Finance, Risk Analysis, Financial Risk Assessment, Risk Models, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Lending, Credit Risk, Allowance for Loan & Lease Losses (ALLL), Bank Covenants, Fundraising, Factoring, Due Diligence, Financial Model Auditing, Cash Management, Cash Flow Modeling, Loan Origination, CFO, Internal Financial Reporting, Revenue & Expense Projections, Valuation of Financial Instruments, Private Company Valuation, Accounting, Financial Reporting, Tax Compliance, Integrated Financial Statements, Product Bidding, Anti-money Laundering (AML), External Financial Reporting, Financial Modeling, Micro Lending
Output Software
Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint
Industry Expertise
Trusts, Asset Management, Healthcare, Leases, Capital Markets, Financial Services, Early-stage Startups
Other
Financial Mathematics, Portfolio Management, Ethics, Treasury Management, Budget Management, Investments, Team Restructuring, Team Mentoring, Software Implementation, Process Automation, Manuals & Documentation, Investment Policy Statements (IPS), Benchmarking, Reporting, Investment Funds, Market Risk, Index, Sharpe, Information Ratio (IR), Tracking, Indexing, Process Control, Expenditure Policy, Payment Processing, Outlook, Corporate Restructuring, Mentorship & Coaching, Systems Analysis, Cash Flow Management, Organizational Change Management (OCM), Business Process Analysis, Investor Reporting, Analysis, Stock Financing, Financial Analysis, Company Analysis, Financial Risk Management, Economics, Programming, Fixed Income, Equity, Accounts Payable, Administration, Corporate Governance, Credit Ratings, Pitch Decks, Financial Statements, Compliance, Performance Attribution, Pension Funds, Software Design, Project Bidding, Team Building, Process Mapping, Process Design, Project Management, Audits, Creditor's Agreements, Investor Agreements, Value at Risk, Credit Policy, Loans, Financial Ratios, Zoom, Teams, Skype, Business Coaching, Term Sheet Negotiations, Finance, Pension Liabilities, Risk Modeling, Investor Relations, Probability Theory, Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, Quantitative Analysis, Alternative Investments, Derivatives, Regulations, Payment Collection, Debt Collection, Invoice Verification, Invoices, Human Resources (HR), IT Security, Data Privacy, Tax Reporting, Risk Management, Cash Flow Analysis, IT Project Management, Strategy, Investment Analysis, SME/SMB Financing, Small & Medium-sized Enterprises (SME), Sensitivity Analysis, Financial Forecasting, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Term Sheet Advisory, Financial Reporting Dashboards, Business Planning, Scenario Analysis, Pricing Models, Salesforce Knowledge, Payroll & Benefits, Fintech, Multi-functional Management, family-owned business, joint-stock companies, Startups, Pitch Deck Consultant
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