I am a strategic and commercial HR leader with a global outlook and culturally adaptable style which helps me operate across diverse locations and levels within the organisation. I have significant experience both as a transformational and operational Director, leading large teams and budgets. I have experience of regional, group as well as country roles.  I have worked in many industries including FMCG, telecom, retail, manufacturing, fashion, restaurants, and financial services, both in HR and in generalist business roles.  I have a proven and consistent record of business results delivery.  My normal operating style is as a resilient pioneering change leader who makes things happen in difficult situations and countries.  I am particularly suited to managing business start-up, turnarounds, growth and building core business and leadership capability especially in the emerging markets. 

  ACCBC has a $1 billion turnover from 3 large manufacturing sites in KSA, UAE and Lebanon and Sales Operations teams in every country across the Middle East, LEVANT and North Africa, making ACCBC the largest Juice company in the region.  Its brands of VIMTO, Barbican, Rani, and of course Coca-Cola are consistently in the top 3 brands in each market. With annual double digit growth, the company has more than doubled its Revenue in the last 5 years with only 50% increase in Headcount.                           

Based in Dubai and reporting to the CEO, I am the top HR person in the business looking after HR, legal, property, government relations, PR and communication functions across all 16 country operations.  My team and I look after 3,500 permanent and over 600 casual employees.   Reporting to me are a team of 18 HR people in Corporate HR plus a further 15 embedded in our country operations as well as a team of 28 property, GRO and Admin officers.  My key task together with our CEOs and Management colleagues has been to create a self-managing professional regional corporation from a traditional local family run business.

• The HR function of Aujan was a traditional personnel function but my team and I created a modern HR business partnership model.  We have aligned our 5 year HR strategy fully to the business strategy.  Delivering this by having small effective HR centres of expertise and excellent operational HR partners in all of our large population centres in the regions

• As one of the key members of the small team I was fully involved in the due diligence and completion of the $1Billion partnership with Coca Cola in 2012 and the acquisition of Coca-Cola Lebanon in 2014.  My team and I designed all the communication and change management tools and processes for these successful integration projects.

• By investing in local and young talent we have taken our Saudization from 18% to 28%, more than trebled the number of female employees including many in senior grades and increased the number of nationalities in the company from 24 to 48 countries.  We have invested heavily in ACCBC Values based leadership to ensure we can grow our own talent. 

• ACCBC has achieved employee satisfaction of 78% according to Hay Surveys as well as being voted the top UAE Employer Brand in 2014.  Also during my time here employee turnover has come down each year during the last 5 years.

• Number of promotions has doubled in the last two years with over 30% of senior positions internally filled last year. Now 48% of Business Critical roles have an identified successor and only 2 high potentials have left Aujan in the last 5 years.

• With over 500 recruits per year to feed the growth in the business my team have reduced the cost of recruitment by 75% while increasing the quality .e.g. Appraisal rating of new recruits is consistently higher than the average employee.

• Productivity has improved consistently each year with revenue per head increasing, and manpower costs as a % of revenue, decreasing.  The organisational design has also ensured the structure stays efficient, flat and with very few layers to ensure speed of decision making.  This also keeps management close to the market and customer realities.  

Vodafone is the largest independently owned telecom company in the world with operations in 21 countries.  It has annual revenue of $39 billion, operating profit of over $9 billion and 93,000 employees worldwide.  This company doubled in size in each of the first 4 years of my employment there.  This growth was both organic and through acquisitions.  Fast pace of change and complexity of operating model were the key characteristics of this business until slowly it became a utility company.

Vodafone 

Turkey

Working with CEO & the top team I had a key role in the turnaround of Vodafone Turkey with fantastic results including creating the new vision / strategy and a significantly leaner and flatter, faster organisation with better processes and people.  Reduced Manpower costs by 12.8% but market share increased from 18% to 24%.  

Vodafone 

Cyprus 

As HRD of Vodafone Cyprus I managed all HR, Property, Security and Admin functions and reported to the GM.  The GM and I appointed all the top team and designed the new operating model. Results were immediate with 28% increase in customer numbers and 43%+ revenue growth. First time VF Cyprus has been in profit in 12 yrs.

Vodafone Netherlands 

With the top team we facilitated this very successful business turnaround, and culture change achieving 192% of targets in 2008.  I project managed the move of our HQ to Amsterdam and recruited 361 top managers in VFNL. 

Vodafone 

Group Marketing 

My role looked after all 850 people in Group Marketing (including 4 CEO level people and 27 Directors) as well as keeping a talent overview and succession plans for all senior & high potential commercial people globally.

Vodafone 

SEMEA Region 

Working with country CEOs & HRDs I had a regional role to look after 10 countries in Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa (later it became the 18 emerging markets countries). I was responsible for all projects for proposed new start-ups including Oman, Saudi Arabia as well as for purchasing Telsim in Turkey.

(Based in UK) Several senior HR, OD, Learning and development roles in Retail, Call Centre, IT, and central country functions. My team and I set up many of the talent development processes in the early days of Vodafone's
growth

(Retail Trading) I started up 3 successful new concept Japanese stores in London, importing and selling household goods from Japan. Increased sales from GBP 2,500 per week to GBP 15,500.  I the sold the business with over 400% profit.

(Japanese Company) As the first employee I started up and managed every HR aspect of a large Japanese Shopping Centre with 890 people employed, $27m Turnover operating a 42K ft. Supermarket, 15 Retail stores, 47 3rd party stores, 11 Restaurants, and the first ever 24 hour operation Sushi factory in UK, supplying Waitrose, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and others. The roles gradually grew to include Shopping Centre Manager and then became General Manager.  I was the sole agent for the successful global sale of this business for £15.3m in Oct 1997.  

Pizza Hut UK (PepsiCo) Performance Development Manager (Fixed term contract)

I designed and launched a company-wide Performance Management system.

Feb 1992 to Jul 1992

Burton Group (Fashion retail) Corporate Management Development Manager – Group

My role was to manage the top 300 executive’s development

Jul 1990 to Dec 1991

Nationwide  (Banking) Management Development, OD & Resourcing Roles

One of my roles was to own the graduate schemes including recruiting 250 per yr.

Jun 1986 to Jul 1990