Govind Bhagwat

• Finance Consultant - Freelance
  Hands-on solo/team member worked and works on various short, medium full time and part time assignments from time to time with varied clients providing various services mainly as follows but not limited to:
  • Financial and direct/indirect tax advisory
  • Income-tax, GST and Customs compliance
  • Regulatory reporting
  • Litigation related support & representation
  • Securing term and working capital loans/line of credit and project report preparations & representations
  • Systems designing, implementation and integrity checks mainly finance, budgeting, internal control and payroll administration
  • Conducting feasibility & strategic studies for Business restructuring & re-modelling
  • Applying fundamental & technical analysis for investment in stock/bullion/currency markets
  • Participate as Expert Tutor in Finance, International Tax, Accounting and Business on various online study and Q&A portals
• 5% of productive time available.

Joined as “District Administrator” (a post akin to Finance Controller) with Sedco Forex International Drilling Inc (SF) on 30 May 1994. Each country was designated as a district in the grand worldly operational design of the company. This was drilling division of French conglomerate Schlumberger Inc. (the world’s largest offshore oilfield services contractor). In 1999, SF was merged with Transocean Inc and became world’s largest offshore oil well drilling contractor. Worked as “Country Finance Controller” till 2001 with merged entity under SF and from 2002 onwards worked as “Fiscal Compliance Manager” of Transocean Offshore International Ventures Inc which is Indian operating entity of Transocean Inc. This was lateral promotion within the country.

Broad responsibilities (but not limited to) handled as follows:

Managing Fiscal and Regulatory Compliance & Financial Controllership and Reporting:
• Finalization of accounts of Indian Operations and integration of the same as per IFRS & GAAP in apex holding company in USA
• Handling Statutory and internal audits
• Budgeting, forecasting & variance reporting
• Implementing internal controls system
• Imparting training of internal controls for SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) to Department Heads & their teams
• Independently hands-on did India income tax return preparation work for 6 operating entities and on an average 500+ expatriate employees from 2000-09. Between 1994-99, the number of expatriates tax returns were around 50 per year
• Liaising with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for setting up new project offices in India and closing of same after project completion

Global tendering, negotiation & contract administration:
• Prime Finance member of bidding team on global techno-commercial tenders and contract negotiations. Aiding company’s offices in similar bidding process for global tenders in other countries as and when required

Succession planning, Mentoring and providing functional support as required:
• Succession planning since 2001 and training the replacement after hiring. Supported replacement and new finance team members from Mar 2008 to Sep 2009 mainly as a work-from-home Consultant (Hybrid – worked 5 days a month in office & balance from home)
• Business advisory & support services to top operations management and department heads in India from their joining day.
• Advisory services to Head Quarters/Region Accounting & Tax Personnel, etc. for setting up new entities/organization in India.

Designing & implementing Payroll Compensation & Benefit System & Administration:
• Prime finance member in designing and setting up payroll compensation & benefits packages in India. In 1995 single handedly designed migration from black box type FoxBase-RDBMS based payroll software system to opensource MS Excel. The system was also used to model and check the results of SAP based software of outsourced agency.

Litigations – Representing before authorities, briefing and supporting legal counsels in India and UK:
• Successfully handled high profile arbitration matters as the key company representative with legal counsels - two in India and one in UK.
• Represented company from time to time before various quasi-judicial and judicial law administering authorities and at High/Supreme Court.
• Regular annual tax compliance and hearings resulted in continuous enduring tax benefits. Further, this also resulted in significant reduction in expatriate tax related compliance costs.

High/Supreme Court. • Regular annual tax compliance and hearings resulted in continuous enduring tax benefits.

Manager – Finance & Taxation
of Mahal Plastics & Fibres Pvt Ltd, 6th Floor, Nariman Bhavan, Nariman Point, Mumbai – 21. Joined as “Accounts and Finance Executive” in Jun 1987 and was promoted to above position in Jan 1992 prior to leaving and joining oil & gas industry. This company was manufacturing unit of the family business. Further, same responsibilities & services were rendered for seven trading and investment/NBFC companies, a trust and managing personal banking & investments of 4 family members. This was a type of set-up which now-a-days is popularly known & niche marked by financial services companies for wealth management as “Family Office of UHNI/HNI”. UHNI here was Sanwarmal Sedmal (family name Hetamsaria) and his family. The office looked after conducting business, accounting & record keeping, investment and tax & regulatory compliance functions. The business consisted of multiple corporate entities with diverse interest and investments in multi-film plastic manufacturing, trading in rayon & polyester waste, heavy investments & trading activity in stock markets. Those were the days when computers (PC-AT/XT) were just introduced in India. This was the time of transition from traditional hand written way of doing & record keeping of business, investment, banking and other transactions to all things digital as it is today and much before advent & common use of applications such MS Office. Those were the days when working started with C prompt (C:\) on computer, accounting books, secretarial records and transfer of investments, etc. were done on hand written papers and pre-printed forms.

Responsibilities:
• Managed wide gamut of functions viz. finalization of accounts, working capital management, taxation, auditing, budgeting and management information system. Securing Term Loans / working capital requirement from Financial Institutions and Commercial Banks. Preparation of Financial Statements - Projections. Periodic submission of various statements. Preparation & filing of income tax returns for corporates & family members (including wealth tax returns) and representations during assessments
• Assisting Company Secretary for compliance under the Companies Act, 1956 and RBI regulations for FERA / FEMA
• Providing financial information to family members as & when required
• Preparation and review of bank reconciliations, monthly cash flow reports, and financial statements
• Preparing and reviewing reports summarizing investment performance and ensure investment activity is recorded as applicable
• Communicating and coordinating on behalf of family with vendors, bankers, insurance brokers, attorneys as appropriate