Sawarny Reddy Kolan

• Acting as a member of the Board of Directors for two Indian entities of Kido Group with the Director Identification Number (DIN) 09593862
• Leading the comprehensive management of the finance and accounting function for 23 entities, spanning six geographies and encompassing 60 nurseries.
• Overhauled the complete accounting process by implementing end-to-end processes, ensuring consistency across various countries, and streamlining operations while accommodating country-specific regulations.
• Lead monthly PNL preparation for all the entities, including assimilation and explanation of monthly financial deviations and coordination of deviation explanations from regional finance team.
• Compile, review, and submit projections of business performance and present results at the monthly Exco Meeting to the CEO’s
• Developed and implemented a comprehensive financial infrastructure, including Cashflows, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting systems, from the ground up. This encompassed multiple geographies, subsidiaries, and product verticals, ensuring a robust and unified financial framework resulting in 20% growth YOY.
• Developed Financial Models to support business decision making, cost reduction, operational improvements, and strategic planning initiatives.
• Work closely with all Global Support Departments including Creative and Marketing, HR, Curriculum, and IT to track and manage spend versus plan and estimates.
• Managed the preparation of stand-alone Audited Financials for entities in the UK, India, US, and Singapore. Collaborated with external auditors, presented financial data to shareholders, and ensured timely and accurate government filings.
• Oversaw the Group Consolidation process for 23 entities, managing the complexities of multiple functional currencies.
• Maintain responsibility for summarizing, quantifying, and compiling audit deficiencies identified by the company’s internal and external auditors throughout the year.
• Assisted in preparing and submitting necessary documents to government authorities, including GST, TDS, PF, ESIC, UK VAT, UAE VAT, WHT, ONS, related to revenues, costs, and disclosure statements. Collaborated with government regulators such as HMRC, ROC, MCA, GST, Income Tax, ACRA, and IRAS.
• Serve as a key control point for managing the global Capital Spending process, including performing detailed analysis and coordinating the Capital Spending budget process by region and facility. Work directly with the CFO, CEO’s, including preparing presentations for Board of Directors and Executive Committee level.
• Successfully initiated and managed a Shared Service Center, facilitating the outsourcing of tasks from other countries to India. Played a key role in establishing Service Level Agreements, implementing Chargebacks with Markup, overseeing Transfer Pricing, and efficiently managing fund collections. These initiatives contributed significantly to generating an additional annual revenue of INR 10 million per Anum.
• Established business process improvements which enhanced the functions of accounts payable and receivables, established the billing and invoicing process and eliminated the duplication which resulted in the effective usage of the funds.
• Engineered a new invoicing system integrating childcare vouchers and Council funding, while implementing robust internal controls. This initiative resulted in a remarkable 30% increase in billing efficiency.
• Implemented an inter-company process among 23 entities, ensuring transactions were executed with an arm's length approach. Oversaw cash settlements and facilitated netting off procedures to enhance efficiency in financial interactions between intra-entities.
• Proficient in accounting and documenting various transactions related to the shares, including the issuance of shares, share swaps, sale of shares, and managing Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)
• Overhauled the entire financial management system by creating, revising, and documenting accounting policies and procedures. Have introduced desktop recordings of all the SOPs.
• Led the Finance and Legal Due Diligence process during investment activities, including acquisitions, business sales, and external funding secured from investment agencies.
• Serve as key liaison to perform acquisition and merger assessments and due diligence, as well as to help integrate any acquisition and merger financially into the legacy systems.
• Served as a point of contact for all the Legal services of the company, holding the POA to represent the company on all the legal and court matters.

Designation – Operations Manager - February 2016-December 2018

Handled a team of 18 people supporting the financial operations of EMEA regions (ITVP, Eyeworks and Shed)

Major Responsibilities:

• Overall responsible for financial statements of 3 business units as a manager by handling day to day transactions, month close activities, reporting and reconciliations with the team of 18.
• Prepare Bytitle and Financial Verification Grids for entire group which gives the gist of all the major checks of P&L and Balance Sheet
• Prepare/maintain supporting documentation for financial statements and related footnotes and maintain standard list of accounting and reporting reviews for quarter close
• Approving all balance sheet account reconciliations on monthly/quarterly basis and follow-ups on open, reconciling and aged items with R2R teams of all business units

Designation – Team Manager - April 2013 -January 2016

Handled a team of 10 people supporting the financial operations of APAC regions (Australia, Korea and China)

Major Responsibilities:

• Overall responsible for financial statements of 3 geographies as a manager by handling day to day transactions, month close activities, reporting and reconciliations.
• Preparation of Slow Moving Inventory, Returns Reserve, Revenue Accruals, Played & Unbilled and other accounting
• Review the error log of the teams and present it to client on monthly basis.

Designation – Assistant Manager - April 2009 to March 2013

Major Responsibilities:

Performing, optimizing and simplification of the Financial Accounting, Reconciliation, Financial Planning and Reporting processes of the content digital distribution.

• Supporting major planning cycles of SI, SII, Op Plan and quarterly estimates and loading the same in SAP BPS, SAP SMART and FLIX (application)
• Revenue and Ultimate analysis of the titles and TV shows
• Preparation of the weekly pacing reports - costs, cash and revenue
• Developing the models for Cost and revenue
• Performing the Variance analysis between the actuals and the estimates
• Handling Marketing Spend for the titles scheduled for release by quarter (estimates vs. actuals) – co-ordination with Marketing team and Operations.
• Publish dashboards and highlight cost / revenue to the CFO and the Directors
• Improved and automated Pacing reports - increased visibility of the financials
• Working with Sourcing, Billing and Supply Chain functions to resolve cost and revenue disconnects.

Designation – Process Developer – January 2006 to March 2009

Major Responsibilities:

Performing the daily audits to validate the sales at the Universal Studios Hollywood and recognize the revenue of the Theme park for the various streams including Parking, Ticketing, Food and Retail (Merchandise).

• Audits the sales made by the cashiers in each store using POS.
• Validating the sales per bank reports; tracing and reporting out the cashier variances to the Lost & Found department.
• Worked on Cash and Credit Card reconciliations.
• Performing the month end closing, Resolving open items for Cash and Credit card Reconciliations
• Credit Cards – Auditing of Retrievals and Chargeback’s of credit card transactions