DAF Services/Industrie

Construction materials and accessories (Tunis, Tunisia)

The company is a specialised manufacturer of fiber-cement roofing & building products, established in 2015 with its factory located in Tunisia, a workforce of 50 employees and a potential to become a top player on its MENA market though facing tremendous difficulties so far since its inception.

Assigned by the Board as Corporate Officer acting as General Manager with the main objectives of business restructuring, sales & marketing development and delivering growth and profitability. After a quick in-depth overall review of the company's processes and a SWOT analysis I took immediate sharp decisions while deploying a new organisation, strategy and action plan with the following impact :

• Materialized a 10-years-term debt restructuring/rescheduling plan by negotiating with banks and while raising new funds & financing credit lines.
• Slashed Admin&overhead payroll/benefits costs by 25% through HR reorganisation.
• Increased by 50% production volume through production process revamping at both technical and recipe level while upgrading output quality.
• Cut by 30% raw material costs thanks to sourcing process optimisation while encouraging local sourcing.
• Selling price increase of 45% by terminating the existing exclusive client contract and developing a territory-diversified 12 client's strong portfolio.
• Overcame COVID crisis, delivered triple-digit year revenue growth (+150%), improved product margin to 40% vs. 5% initially and showed a positive EBITDA for the first time in company's 7-years-history.

Benefits & Rewards Services (Tunis, Tunisia)

Sodexo BRS Tunisia as part of Sodexo Group, a global leader in Quality of Live Services, is operating in a fast-growing market facing a fierce price competition from local players within a challenging "post-revolution" context and a changing environment (Customer experience, IT transformation).

As Country CFO in charge of the Finance & Administration Department with the support of my team of 12 and a successful partnering at CEO & Board level, we outperformed ambitious expectations with the following achievements :

• Build, Execute and Monitor a YoY accurate 3-years Financial Plan supporting Strategic Execution planning.
• Deliver 20% financial revenue line growth by optimising cash strategy and negotiation with banks.
• Seamless development of Internal Control and Financial Controlling new roles by redeploying existing human resources while empowering teams.
• Ensuring efficient cost control and process automation along with a yearly double-digit revenue growth to generate economies of scale resulting in 300-bps EBIT increase.
• Generated a “no-cost” a fast-growing revenue line through interaction and innovation with IT, digital marketing and bank partnerships.
• Adopting, adapting and fostering IT transformation & marketing digitalisation to strengthen leading position while capturing a high-margin market niche and enhancing overall Customer Experience.
• Ensuring permanent proactive communication and constructive interaction with stakeholders including banks, administration, auditors, tax advisors, insurance companies, board, group, …

Oil & Gas Drilling Fluids Services (Tunis, Tunisia)

Holding a newly created position requiring quick adaptation, leadership, communication & project management skills to bring added-value on top of the "standard role" of financial forecasting and performance analysis (BS, P&L, DSO, EBIT) which I did by :

• negotiating and improving clients T&C's, prices and DSO.
• reducing raw material & overhead costs through suppliers' contracts review and renegotiation.
• managing Oracle ERP roll-out and implementation (Luxor Africa Project) enhancing on-time efficient reports and business analytics overview.
• successfully defending and contributing to win a Tax claim case.

A very enriching experience within a BIG 4 Audit firm and a fantastic opportunity to put into practice while developing my skills & competencies among what I consider being a "school of work".

First participating, learning and training as junior while growing as team leader to successfully plan & staff, conduct and manage internal control review, audit & certification missions (IFRS, French/US GAAP, statutory and group consolidated accounts) specialising in the Consumers Industrial Products & Services (mainly Automotive), with a wide exposure on multiple types & sizes of structures (from CAC 40 to SME).