Experience
Management Consultant
Trusted adviser to business owners & senior executives. With 10years + Management Consulting experience in strategy development firstly as an in-house strategy manager for Sensis (Telstra) and as a independent consultant.
My diverse experience enables me to develop insightful, pragmatic that deliver commercial returns for clients.
Projects include:
- Business strategy development for new (greenfield) business strategy, business turnaround including workforce change management, IT, product and sales & marketing
- Sales strategy development including sales structure, go-to-market and workforce profiles for 200+ field sales teams, SaaS and service businesses across ANZ, SE Asia & China.
- M&A strategy for Telstra which lead to 6 acquisitions
- M&A led commercial due diligence for 15+ transactions from <$1m to $300m
- Project managed divestment of 11 separate assets - broke up business into standalone assets for sale
- Operational strategy development covering workforce optimisation, recruitment, process efficiencies,
- Developed agile research methodology to support "continuous change" strategy and support final strategic direction. Includes in-depth interviews, desktop, data interrogation and survey construction and implementation
- Led change management project from setting strategic goals, project scope with KPI's, implementing changes with ongoing review of outcomes
- Market research to build the "data case" for strategic decision making
- Strong business acumen to develop creative strategies and experience in presenting to boards and senior executives
- Client's businesses include media, events, Real Estate, accommodation, tourism, education, SaaS, telecommunication, financial services, health, professional services, private equity
Managing Director
Private Equity owned with strategy of splitting up consolidated business and selling assets separately.
Business was under-performing and I was hired to drive the change management program across sales, product, content, IT and general operational effectiveness. Business was unprofitable when I started and with the changes I implemented the business grew to 30% EBITDA margin.
- Completed 9 divestment transactions each time creating standalone assets that could be sold to various buyers
- P&L responsibility with management of sales, marketing, editorial, digital product, IT and finance
- Business covered Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia
- Sales force transformation through re-engineering recruitment process, commission plans, contract processes, CRM implementation (salesforce) and overall go-to-market strategy
- Digital transformation through new digital product development and transiting revenue from predominately print to digital products
- Migrated IT platform to cloud environment - AWS
- Established outsourced team in the Philippines as a cost effective team to manage system admin (CRM, databases) delegate sales and customer service
- Introduced social selling strategy to increase revenues by 25% YoY
- Rolled out marketing automation platform to increase customer engagement across all business units
Group Product Manager
Media Smart was an Ad Network business providing sales and technology solutions to monetise websites for Telstra and other independent online businesses that did not have its own sales force and technology
-Appointed to turnaround under performing department to meet growth targets and repair relationships with key external stakeholders.
-Re-designed department with 4 separate high performing teams aligned to key focus outputs.
-Responsible for 50+ staff-covering product, pricing, reporting, ad tech, and third party site management
GM Corporate Strategy, Business Development & Operations
Relocated to Beijing after working on Telstra’s initial Chinese acquisition of Real Estate Portal Soufun (Fang.com).
-Identified attractive underlying markets and potential owners who are willing to sell majority stakes to Sensis (Telstra) to expand Sensis (Telstra’s) digital media portfolio in China
-Working with Telstra’s M&A team to manage deal process then protecting Telstra’s interests through overseeing and supporting local management of the portfolio companies.
-Strategy resulted in six acquisitions across online classifieds, mobile content and mobile advertising markets.
-From zero revenue portfolio revenue had grown to ~$450m with 4,000 staff. Telstra has since divested these assets and realised $2.7Bn profit on these acquisitions.
Major achievements:
-Autohome acquisition: Identified auto classified market and autohome as the business most likely to win in early stage market. Now NYSE listed, valued at US$12.4Bn. Telstra sold its 70% share from 2013-16 for around US$2.4Bn from its total investment of US$200m
-Soufun (Real Estate portal) acquisition: Acted as commercial lead during due diligence and reported back to Telstra board resulting in successful acquisition. Telstra sold out to realize a $190m profit in 2010
-Led the success integration of 2 portfolio companies working with Chinese management team – first time a foreign company in China had merged 2 online companies to create a clear market leader (Autohome).
-Oversaw the development of management and sales training programs with 40 managers and 200 sales staff receiving training in first year
-Established Telstra’s corporate social responsibility program to build Telstra’s brand in China to “favourable” status with the Chinese Government
-Project managed transfer of mobile middle-ware technology from China portfolio business to one of Telstra’s businesses resulting in several million dollars in cost savings