Saso Puksic
Verified Expert in Management Consulting
Management Consulting Expert
Gloucester, United Kingdom
Toptal member since October 25, 2021
Saso has worked over 20 years with entrepreneurs and corporations (software or high-tech manufacturing), helping them grow and expand into new businesses, restructure, and become the best in the class by leveraging his interdisciplinary skillset across finance, process improvement, engineering, and coding. During the 14 years working with Renishaw, he also met and helped many fascinating clients (Universal Robots, Intuitive Surgical, and Quadrofoil) and enjoys freelancing to help even more.
Career Highlights
Education Highlights
Certification Highlights
Case Studies
Expertise
- Financial Modeling
- Financial Systems
- Forecasting
- Power Query M
- Process Improvement
- Project Management
- Startups
- Xero
Work Experience
Finance and Administration Manager
Bouygues Energies & Services
- Drove the financial planning of the Hinkley Point C project by analyzing its performance, risks, and opportunities. Hinkley Point C is the first new nuclear power station to be built in the UK in over 20 years.
- Oversaw all audit and internal control operations for administrative and financial matters.
- Managed subcontractors, measuring monthly progress based on subcontractors' contracts and monitoring subcontract obligations (bonds, insurance, and payment terms).
Director
Five Valleys Systems Ltd
- Provided company formation services and accountancy services for startups.
- Managed projects and consulted on software design and software architecture.
- Compressed, for a client, their original multi-year timeline for a machine vision/artificial intelligence (AI) project into just over a year. It resulted in a patent-pending technology and four different applications for traffic, retail, and care.
- Developed the Octopus Tariff app on Google Play to optimize electricity consumption for Octopus Energy's customers on the innovative, agile tariff made possible by smart meters. It ranks in one of the top spots in the home category in the UK.
Head of Group Reporting
Mears
- Redesigned the IFRS 16 reporting process to save time and deliver accurate information on thousands of long-term leases.
- Internalized the calculation of IFRS 16 incremental borrowing rate (IBR), a simple process that was previously a significant external cost.
- Oversaw the redesign of the whole annual reporting process, integrating financial and other business perspectives, beginning with IFRS 16 reporting, which was particularly time-consuming and challenging for the company.
Director
planarTECH Distribution Ltd
- Contributed to the alleviation of the acute PPE shortage at the onset of the pandemic by setting up and developing the distribution of planarTECH's graphene-enhanced surgical face masks in the UK and Europe in a matter of weeks.
- Set up the eCommerce website and the ERP from scratch without external support. Integrated and automated the whole process from customers' online orders to ERP entries (Xero) and shipping (Royal Mail).
- Performed a deep dive into the European Medical Devices Directive on the product side to iterate on the design and make the product compliant with the directive and medical mask standard EN 14683:2019+AC:2019.
- Negotiated and drafted the joint venture agreement.
- Incorporated the company and also wound it down in the end.
Group Engineering Finance Manager
Renishaw
- Incorporated Renishaw doo, an application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) design studio and a new business for Renishaw. Took care of the commercial side of things while an engineering MD was seconded to Slovenia to head the startup.
- Developed IFRS 16 reporting (leases) by introducing a simple and user-friendly (although very complex, behind-the-scenes) Excel template to be maintained by each subsidiary, plus an automated consolidation template.
- Implemented operational and financial forecasting, from scratch, for a key future customer, a startup with fantastic technology but who needed rescuing.
- Built financial models for new ventures and acquisitions, e.g., to set up the global network of additive manufacturing centers, set up an ASIC design company, or acquire a technology park in the Netherlands.
- Started the "Power Query initiative" to adopt Power Query across the business. This resulted in queries and reports unimaginable before, even with external SQL queries and VBA. Simplified and sped up a number of legacy reports.
- Partnered with Group Engineering on projects, forecasts, and budgets to deliver the market's most promising, sustainable, and profitable new product innovations.
- Looked after the project accounting and patent box systems.
- Prepared the business case for an ASIC design studio, considering two potential locations (Wales and Slovenia), benchmarking our internal economics against existing external studios, and considering setting up on-campus.
- Prepared applications and reporting for a number of EU-funded and government-funded projects. Besides mostly R&D projects, this included setting up the Fabrication Development Centre to host schools and promote STEM education.
- Transferred and integrated the finance function from an acquired 3D printing business, specifically metal additive manufacturing, into Renishaw.
Head of Finance, IT, HR & Projects
RLS d.o.o.
- Contributed significantly to the turnaround that made the company the fastest-growing company in Slovenia over the last five years (the Golden Gazelle 2015 award) and the Best Employer (the Golden Thread award).
- Delivered the company's core projects and developed the business departments to materialize the potential for rapid growth. Grew revenue from €2.2 million in FY2009 to €8 million in FY2014 and net profit from €25,000 to €620,000.
- Interlinked cross-departmental processes to enable real-time measurement of financial outcomes and forecasting of cash flows. Management was able to make quick decisions and materialize the explosive growth potential.
- Established a project management office (PMO), a project portfolio management process, and implemented MS Project Server highly integrated with other business systems.
- Contributed to the wealth creation that firmly put the half-owner and the CEO onto the Top 100 Richest People in Slovenia list. Renishaw owns the other half.
- Completed an EU-funded R&D project to develop the new generation of the company's core technology, magnetic encoders. The three-year-plus project resulted in several patents and awards for innovation.
- Completed the relocation project, which included acquiring land and building new premises, including a positive-pressure clean room.
Sole Trader
STRACO Saso Puksic s.p.
- Performed company valuations and other professional services.
- Advised on insurance and insurance brokerage services.
- Sold and implemented cashless payment solutions (POS card payments).
Financial Analyst, Advisor, and Head of Investment Committee
GBD BPD d.d.
- Advised clients (individuals and businesses), produced reports, recommendations, forecasts, news releases, and analyses (macroanalyses, industry analyses, company analyses, and individual financial instruments).
- Headed the investment committee from its inception in February 2009 until leaving in October 2009.
- Continued to work for GBD BPD part-time until 2012 after accepting the role with RLS at the end of 2009.
Consultant | Sales Engineer
Various Employers
- Co-founded and served as the managing director of CRM sistemi d.o.o., a customer relationship management solutions provider.
- Served as a sales engineer and the RLS brand manager at RLS d.o.o., where I rejoined RLS in 2009.
- Introduced the 20 Keys program, a Japanese continuous improvement technique, to the team in post-communist enterprises in Slovenia at Deloitte.
- Consulted clients on implementing ISO 9001 and balanced scorecard systems at 5KMC.
- Coded custom Navision Financials ERP modules in C# and implemented the ERP known today as Microsoft Dynamics NAV at Adacta.
- Consulted an ERP vendor on business strategy development and led the business process reengineering project on two key processes that followed.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Management and Organization
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics - Ljubljana, Slovenia
Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Engineering with Business Studies
University of Maribor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Faculty of Economics and Business - Maribor, Slovenia
Certifications
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)
CIMA
PRINCE2 Practitioner
AXELOS Global Best Practice
Mediator
Ministry of Justice, Centre for Judicial Education, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Business Appraiser (Company Valuations)
Slovenian Institute of Auditors, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)
CFA institute
Stock Broker, Investment Advisor, Portfolio Manager
Securities Market Agency, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Insurance Broker
Insurance Supervision Agency, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Skills
Finance
Accounting, Valuation, Capital Investment Appraisals, Stock Trading, Financial Modeling, Project Accounting, Financial Systems, Corporate Finance, Forecasting, Cash Flow, Order to Cash (O2C), Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), CFA Level 3, Financial Reporting, Management Accounting, Budgeting, Financial Management, Cash Flow Modeling, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Revenue & Expense Projections, Three-statement Modeling, CFO, Market Research, Profitability Analysis, Controller, Cash Flow Forecasting, Operational Finance, Lease Accounting, Debt Analysis, Due Diligence, Personal Finance, Equity Crowdfunding, Funding Strategy, Startup Funding, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Pricing
Output Software
Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Stripe Payments, Google Sheets, Odoo
Data & Analysis Software
Xero Accounting, QuickBooks Online
Industry Expertise
Exports, Foreign Subsidiaries, Consumer Products, Life Insurance
Other
Power Query, Xero, Power Query M, Financial Analysis, Project Management, Stock Market, Business, Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Manufacturing, IFRS 16, Startups, Grants, System Integration, eCommerce, VAT Return Preparation, Incorporation, Project Portfolio Management (PPM), Business Systems, Investments, Business Process Re-engineering, Process Improvement, Data Architecture, Reporting, Modeling, Restructuring, Organization, Cross-functional, Excel Expert, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Data Analytics, Equity Markets, Financial Statements, Reconciliation, Financial Records, CIMA, Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA), Finance, Cash Flow Management, Optimization, Business Models, Board Presentations, Data Visualization, Storytelling, Grant Proposals, Financial Writer, Client Presentations, Client Relations, CEO, Process Mapping, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Business Planning, CAPEX Budgeting & Inventory Management, Financing, Audits, Complex Account Reconciliations, eCommerce Fulfillment, Third-party Logistics, Turnaround, COO, Month-end Processes, Operations, Vendor Management, Performance Improvement, Business Services, Business to Business (B2B), PRINCE2 Project Management, Trading Systems, Marketing, Medical Devices, Program Management, Derivatives, Bonds, Buy-side, Sell-side, Sales, CRM Systems, Quality Management, Distribution, Negotiation, Multicultural, Currencies, Investor Presentations, WooCommerce, Operational Audits, Portfolio Management, Business Strategy, Company Strategy, Strategic Planning & Execution, Investment Committee Advisory, US GAAP, Personal Finance Management, Payment Gateways, Online Payments, Card Payments, Business to Consumer (B2C), Inventory Management, Scaling, Amazon FBA, Mediation, Dispute Resolution, Insurance Broking, P&C Insurance, Industrial Engineering, Post-merger Integration, Joint Ventures, Software Design, Brand Management, Engineering, Joint Venture Development, PayPal, Annual Reports, Disclosures for IFRS Reporting, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Python, Cost Control, Vendors & Suppliers, Contract Management, Change Management
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