Alex FitzGerald
Palo Alto,CA
Summary
Dynamic Senior Director of Accounting Operations at Coupa Software Inc., adept at driving revenue operations strategy and execution. Achieved 106% ROI on automation initiatives while fostering cross-functional collaboration. Skilled in RPA and team leadership, I excel in optimizing processes to enhance financial efficiency and empower teams to achieve exceptional results.
Overview
19
19
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Senior Director of Accounting Operations
Coupa Software Inc
San Mateo, CA
03.2022 - Current
- As a Senior Director of Accounting Operations, I lead global accounting and payroll initiatives that have significantly improved the accuracy of accounting and payroll operations across more than 30 countries.
- By prioritizing continuous improvement, operational effectiveness, collaboration with cross-functional teams, streamlining global processes, and automation initiatives that contribute to the company's financial efficiency.
Director of Digital Transformation and Program Management Office
Coupa Software Inc
San Mateo, CA
04.2021 - 03.2022
- Collaborating with IT teams to implement Alteryx and UiPath to digitize accounting operations.
- Transformation and PMO were deprioritized due to Thoma Bravo's acquisition of Coupa.
Director of Business Excellence and Transformation
Spotify USA Inc
New York, NY
10.2018 - 01.2022
- Built and maintained relationships with cross-functional partners to expand sales to 80+ new markets, launched numerous new products, implemented new systems and system enhancements, tested system upgrades, and integrated efforts for Spotify's acquisitions.
- Resolving problems, improving operations, and providing exceptional service.
- Led the F&A outsourcing partner relationship, governance, and delivery of accounting BPO operations.
- Through strong relationship management, working with business partners in Sales, Legal, Sales operations, IT, Accounting Operations, Tax, Technical Accounting, FP&A, Internal Audit, and Product Engineering to remove blockers, bureaucracy, and other items that slowed the project teams down.
- Through cross-functional efforts, we achieved 106% ROI on Accounting automation and process improvements, boosting productivity by 23%.
- Led the pioneering of Citizen Developer at Spotify.
- Pioneering creating a hybrid RPA operating model to empower Accountants to build bots.
- Led the program management on several new technology implementations, such as Coupa Invoice Smash, Coupa Supplier Information Manager, and CoupaPay in the US with Amex.
- Vertex tax engine with changes to the Subscriber sign-up process to determine U.S. sales tax by zip code at point-of-sale (POS).
- Automated the regression testing of bi-annual Netsuite upgrades using Xcelero and RPA.
- Created and executed testing scenarios for Coupa and Kyriba release updates, including integration to Netsuite, reducing the overall time spent on SaaS upgrade regression testing by 50%.
- Implemented a process to understand the unique complexities in a country for a new entity setup and maintenance before presenting for CAO Approval.
Senior Manager BPO and Strategic Initiatives
Spotify AB
Stockholm, Sweden
06.2018 - 10.2018
- Oversaw the relationship management, governance, budget, and delivery of accounting BPO operations.
- As a Senior Manager of BPO and Strategic Initiatives at Spotify AB, I implemented a governance structure, documentation, education, and operational monitoring to stabilise operations.
- Introduced Process Maturity Model to advance continuous improvement and moved from level zero to level three in three years.
- Developed and implemented performance improvement strategies and plans to promote continuous improvement leveraging Lean Six Sigma Tool, RPA, data analytics, and design thinking practices.
- Maintained zero changes in BPO headcount while Spotify headcount increased internally by 52%.
Senior Accounting Manager
Twitter Inc.
San Francisco, CA
09.2014 - 06.2018
- Managed global billing, agency rebates, and AR reserves.
- Led process and system requirements for new product releases and market expansions.
- Designed and implemented new billing capabilities for new products and market expansions, mergers and acquisitions, and withdrawals.
- Reduced the monthly billing close cycle by six hours through standardisation, retraining, and empowering the international teams to be part of the close.
- Partnered with IT, engineering, sales, tax department, and other stakeholders to enable revolving credit IOs.
- Played a vital role in the go-live of NFL Thursday night football, calculating and tracking payments to the NFL and building billing capabilities for the new advertising products.
- Automated calculations and templates for accounting entries across several entities, intercompany entities, and auto-created intercompany journals.
- This provided content partners with revenue shares a week earlier and reduced the monthly close time by one day for partner payment calculations and accounting entries.
- Pioneered the introduction of RPA with optical character recognition (OCR) to automate IO compliance checks, which redeployed a 10-member team from reviewing and reporting IO to system reconciliation through RPA, enabling them to focus on more value-added activities.
Revenue Operations Manager, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)
Twitter International Company
Dublin, Ireland
01.2014 - 09.2014
- Project Managed international OTC billing and collections operations by building the Order-to-Cash teams for APAC & LATAM.
- Set up and rolled out the revenue hub for Twitter U.K., Singapore, and Twitter Brazil.
- Drove international expansion of Twitter self-serve billing, tax, and reporting for small to medium businesses (SMBs).
- Modelled and launched an Agency incentive and Reseller rebates.
- Managed all international master customer data, including credit and collections, cash applications, and AR reserves.
Revenue Recognition Accountant
Novell Ireland Software Ltd.
Dublin, Ireland
02.2006 - 02.2012
- As a Revenue Recognition Accountant at Novell Ireland Software Ltd., I assessed risks and reviewed non-standard deals for US GAAP requirements SAB 104, SOP 97-2, and EITF 08-1.
- I also automated the calculation of residual values based on VSOE for revenue recognition and completed multi-channel rebate automation.
- Additionally, I collated and calculated VSOE for software and consulting each year and spent the last 18 months in FP&A setting up the SQL extracts and models for revenue budgets and reporting.
Education
Chartered Management Accountant -
Chartered Institute of Management Accountant
London, EnglandDiploma - Business Studies Management
Technology University
Dublin, IrelandSkills
Revenue Operations Strategy and Execution
Billing Process Management (SKU Establishment, Invoicing, Reconciliation)
Revenue Forecasting & Analysis
Cross-Functional Collaboration (Finance, Engineering, Accounting, Analytics)
Process Improvement
Automation (RPA, Alteryx)
Data Analysis & Interpretation
Team Leadership & Development
Stakeholder Management & Communication
System Implementation & Optimization
Project Management
Certification
- Google Cloud Digital Leader, 10/01/21
- AICPA IT Governance Risk and Controls, 07/01/21
- UiPath RPA Infrastructure Engineer Foundation, 07/01/21
- AICPA Blockchain: Benefits, Values, and Opportunities, 07/01/21
- AICPA CGMA Digital Mindset, 07/01/21
- Six Sigma Master Black Belt, 05/01/21
- UiPath RPA Developer Foundation, 05/01/20
- AICPA Understanding Robotic Process Automation, 04/01/21
- AICPA Governance Risks and Controls for RPA, 08/01/20
- UiPath RPA Business Analyst Foundation, 08/01/19
- UiPath RPA Implementation Manager Foundation, 08/01/19
- ACMA
- CGMA
Timeline
Senior Director of Accounting Operations
Coupa Software Inc
03.2022 - Current
Director of Digital Transformation and Program Management Office
Coupa Software Inc
04.2021 - 03.2022
Director of Business Excellence and Transformation
Spotify USA Inc
10.2018 - 01.2022
Senior Manager BPO and Strategic Initiatives
Spotify AB
06.2018 - 10.2018
Senior Accounting Manager
Twitter Inc.
09.2014 - 06.2018
Revenue Operations Manager, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)
Twitter International Company
01.2014 - 09.2014
Revenue Recognition Accountant
Novell Ireland Software Ltd.
02.2006 - 02.2012
Chartered Management Accountant -
Chartered Institute of Management Accountant
Diploma - Business Studies Management
Technology University
Similar Profiles
Benjamin LabatBenjamin Labat
Integration Engineer at Coupa Software IncIntegration Engineer at Coupa Software Inc
MOHAMMAD AQUIB ANISMOHAMMAD AQUIB ANIS
Technical Support Specialist at Coupa Software IncTechnical Support Specialist at Coupa Software Inc
Rachel MalzacherRachel Malzacher
Solutions Manager at Coupa Software IncSolutions Manager at Coupa Software Inc