Ashok Charan

As CFO

• Financial Strategy: Supported CEO/ Board with leadership role in formulating and executing comprehensive financial strategies aligned with company's goals and vision. Leveraging data-driven insights to identify growth opportunities and enhance financial performance.
• Fundraising and Capital Management: Supported CEO in raising capital from investors and lenders, negotiating favorable terms, and managing cash flow efficiently to meet operational needs.
• Budgeting and Forecasting: Introduced strong budgeting system and developed accurate budgets, financial projections, and conducting variance analyses to optimize resource allocation and maintain financial discipline. Introduced weekly/monthly forecasting to track business trends and performance.
• Financial Reporting and Analysis: Revamped entire accounting system to provide clear and concise financial reports for stakeholders, enabling informed decision-making. Introduced weekly/monthly/quarterly MIS to analyze financial data to identify trends, risks, and opportunities for improvement. Brought down MIS release by 10 days.
• Compliance and Risk Management: Ensured strict adherence to regulatory requirements, tax obligations, and financial compliance. Implementing risk management strategies to safeguard company's financial interests. Minimized litigation risks through monitoring risks and key actions.
• Team Leadership and Development: Built high performing finance team to deliver quality output. Also mentored various cross-functional teams, fostering a collaborative work environment, and empowering individuals to excel in their roles.
• Strategic Partnerships: Built and maintaining strong relationships with external partners, financial institutions, and investors to facilitate growth and unlock new opportunities. Supported with insights on various acquisition opportunities to make informed decisions on capital allocation.

As CFO for annual US$ 40 Mn SaaS Portfolio,

• Partnered business to achieve annual business targets through continuous monitoring of KPIs. Increased SBU Revenue by US$ 1 Mn though contract negotiations and structuring
• Supported SBU head in managing business by developing various scenarios to assess COVID-19 impacts; with focus on generating net positive cash, cash optimization measures, close monitoring of various metrics for business, achieved operations cost savings of US$ 400K annually
• US IPO preparation work: Played key role as part of core team for preparation of US public listing project; worked with all internal stakeholders, Investors and bankers on financial model simulation, MDA and SEC related filing
• ERP implementation: Played Key role from finance for R2R processes for Oracle fusion implementation in designing system and re-engineering processes as part of new ERP system
• Due Diligence of 5 M&A opportunities with size ranging from $2 Mn to $60Mn in revenue; supported business to deep dive into strategic fitment assessment and understanding synergies in potential M&A target including building business case
• Played pivotal role in reducing level of debts by US$ 750K through process streamlining and driving additional focus and actions; Developed various process guideline documents for internal business users for improved ease and efficiency
• Supported SBU to contract several small to large deal with TCV ~$125Mn. Developed alternative pricing model for business which are linked to transaction volumes with target Revenue upside of US$ 1.1 Mn annualized

• Performed Statutory audit of > 40 private companies, Tax audits, IND AS migration, Transfer Pricing Audits & audit under KVAT
• Performed Valuation of private companies and share valuation for ESOP
• Advised clients on various strategic financial matters – company set up, accounting processes, profitability, and cost reductions
• Executed FEMA & Statutory compliance assignments with respect to GST, TDS

As CFO for annual business of US$ 350 Mn Portfolio (Securities and Capital Market Vertical),

• Achieved US$ 4 Mn savings through contract negotiations/ contract compliance/ operational improvement measures
• Negotiated large contracts of US$ 100 Mn+ size & multiple US$ 5 Mn+ end-to-end Master Service agreement , Statement of Work, Structured commercials, which resulted in win-win situation for customer and company
• Improved profitability by 2% through Implementation of key initiatives along with account and operations team, ensuring positive EPS growth to shareholders, also driven various key strategic initiatives and enabled business with analytics to take appropriate decisions
• Improved cash position by process improvements for Receivables resulting in improvement in days sale outstanding by 5 days at business unit level
• Undertaken DSO dashboard automation & many other IT automation initiatives, aimed at process efficiency and accurate, timely information to business users

• Supported business head in managing portfolio size of INR 1600 Mn
• Implemented Pricing Framework for each of brands in portfolio to increase brand value realization (value realization of brands improved by INR 150 Mn annually~ 10% improvement) , Uniformity in pricing decisions based on volumes and mitigate pricing/regulatory non-compliance risks
• Implemented pricing module in SAP as per strategic priorities of organization with inbuilt control measures- complete project management responsibility from system requirement analysis to Go-live
• Developed business case for appropriate decision making like new product introduction, changes in SKU's

• Negotiated master service agreements/ statement of work with customer, structuring commercials, milestone payment and all other commercial terms and conditions
• Supported business to generate additional CR of US$ 39 Mn cumulative in fixed price contracts (16% of initial contracted TCV)
• Identified and driven actions to improve EBIT by 3% by tracking Non-Linear initiatives across Business Unit viz. converting T&M contracts to fixed price, moving to flex delivery for support engagement, higher offshore mix, reducing onsite contractors etc
• Played key role in setting up new Analytics Services practice unit through org. restructure with annual Revenue of ~US$ 400 Mn and building MIS reports from scratch including driving actions for meeting Revenue and profitability plans
• Supported 4 verticals in HLS SBU with portfolio size of US$ 160 Mn annual Revenue
• Improved account receivable position by 3 days on annal basis through regular calls with delivery and collection teams
• Developed profitability consciousness among project delivery through road shows, sessions

• Reconciled ~US$ 258 Mn monthly Revenue (US$ 3.1 billion annual) with monthly estimate as part of Revenue assurance process
• Analyzed revenue leakage through effort unbilled, overrun in fixed price projects for actions by business units
• Delivered reports and analysis in highly time constraint environment with utmost accuracy (critical role in releasing MIS at Wipro Corporate by 7th of next month)-Revenue, rate analytics
• Competitive Intelligence–Tracked and reported Competitor performance on quarterly basis to senior leadership team. Setting up of competition analysis report for management from scratch
• Consolidated annual Revenue plan of ~US$ 4.5 Billon at Company level. Also, undertaken plan preparation at Wipro BPO level
• Reduced monthly MIS pack by 80% (20 pages from 98 pages) by complete overhaul of reports based on feedback from users and designed fresh reports
• Played critical role in setting up MS-CRM application and processes at Wipro BPO unit