Elizabeth Ufer
Chicago,IL
Summary
Finance professional with 9+ years of experience in both core finance and cross functional roles in FP&A, supply chain finance and commercial finance, while working across multiple industries, including consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, consulting, and service-based industries.
Overview
8
8
years of professional experience
Work History
Global Senior Financial Analyst
Culligan international
09.2023 - 11.2024
- Managed upwards of $100M in EBITDA Add Backs spend, streamlined fiscal close template and improved forecasting visibility in first 3 months, gave regular presentations to Culligan CFO, set up recurring calls with 7 different global entities for improved communication
- Analyzed and interpreted over $1B of impact from large acquisitions and mentored a newer team colleague when transitioning the process.
- Designed the Global Brand Refresh financial model in under 2 weeks to meet the requested start date, collaborated with global marketing leaders and senior M&A leadership to increase spend proposal approvals, and presented monthly to the Culligan CMO on analysis of results and to develop forecasts.
- Designed the Global Bottle Free Cooler Refresh financial model in under 2 weeks to meet the requested start date, collaborated with the global capex team and financial leaders to create a 2024 and 2025 capex forecast, presented monthly to the VP of Product Strategy on analysis of results and to develop forecasts.
Growth Senior Finance Associate
TruGreen
03.2022 - 08.2023
- Managed upwards of $16M of marketing spend and improved forecast accuracy by weekly meetings with the marketing team to adjust lead and spend targets.
- Built an automated monthly P&L forecasting model in two weeks to replace the existing weekly model and pushed cross functional teams to focus on monthly forecasting, creating a more proactive culture
- Designed the Perimeter Pest Product P&L that provided a 2 year EBITDA outlook by collaborating with supply chain finance to calculate historical cost trends and utilizing data from marketing agency partners to forecast revenue
- Created ranking system for Trugreen sales branches to determine the level of marketing investment per branch
- Built and implemented product scorecard to track Lawncare pricing tests
Commercial Finance Senior Analyst
ZS Associates
09.2020 - 03.2022
- Negotiated MSA (master service agreement) rate cards for Fortune 500 clients, collaborating with client facing and legal teams to execute a one time 10% rate increase along with 3% minimum yearly inflation increases
- Developed a standard operating procedure for navigating the financial elements of an MSA negotiation and implemented monthly email updates on MSA statuses and expiration dates, in order to better assist finance teams and consulting partners in negotiating successful rate card increases.
- Initiated a standard schedule of team meetings and built a project tracker to increase communication among team members and increase productivity.
- Built an MSA database for over 100 existing MSA agreements and created a sustainable and user friendly system to update existing agreements or add new.
US Operations Senior Analyst (FP&A & Procurement)
Kraft Heinz
07.2018 - 08.2020
- Managed $1.5B of spend in external manufacturing finance for US procurement, which involved collaborating with 15 external manufacturing buyers to develop accurate forecasts, booking all journal entries related to external manufacturing, providing analysis of monthly drivers and forecasts to senior procurement leaders, and calculating the standard costs for over 1000 products to begin the annual planning cycle.
- Created year over year cost comparisons that caught a $2M ingredients overcharge and exposed over $2M of cost and further risk due to a recurring rebate that was incorrectly forecasted, leading to a budget adjustment.
- Focused on the total US Operations P&L at Kraft Heinz and lead consolidation and reporting process during monthly fiscal close and worked directly with US Operations CFO and US Operations finance leads to create the 2019 budget.
- Lead the upload of the budget into the financial reporting system and reconciled $125M sales volume discrepancy.
- Created the methodology and analysis for the US Operations Impairment, and lead the subsequent audit across US Operations, which involved coordinating 40+ requests across finance and cross functional teams and responding directly to requests from the Kraft Heinz CFO.
Financial Management Program
General Electric (Healthcare & Aviation)
07.2016 - 07.2018
- Global Cash Analyst: Managed working capital at a global level, including tracking estimates and analyzing drivers on a weekly to monthly basis; actively drove simplification and automation efforts, including building dashboards and streamlined reporting for better analysis; conducted payment terms projects in Japan and UAE to improve billing linearity and past dues.
- XTT Targets Finance Manager: Managed revenues, base and variable cost for the XTT Targets Plant, including hitting $200K under target during close; capitalized over $6M worth of assets; created a Finance 101 Training Deck for engineering and operations to foster better relations between operations and finance to drive collaboration and better decision-making.
- Commercial Controllership Analyst: Monitored non-standard contracts for deferral risk and worked with KPMG to develop tighter controls around reporting processes; completed sox testing and lead a full-scale concessions audit and identified a deficiency in concession documentation.
- Commercial Engines Income Statement and Strategic Finance Analyst: Tracked $1.5-2B or orders and actively worked to create accurate forecasting models; created new analyses of orders data to drive action; Analyzed $700M of unclassified variable cost to create a standardized accounting structure and cost out opportunities.
Education
B.A. - Psychology
Indiana University
05.2016
Skills
- Microsoft Office (Excel, Powerpoint, Word)
- Financial Modeling and Forecasting
- Financial Systems (SAP, Oracle, HFM)
- Data Visualization Tools (Power BI, Salesforce, Spotfire)
- Experienced presenting to senior leadership
- Composed, calm, and resilient during high stress situations
- Coaches and mentors younger team members
- Proactively looks for ways to automate and simplify recurring processes
Timeline
Global Senior Financial Analyst
Culligan international
09.2023 - 11.2024
Growth Senior Finance Associate
TruGreen
03.2022 - 08.2023
Commercial Finance Senior Analyst
ZS Associates
09.2020 - 03.2022
US Operations Senior Analyst (FP&A & Procurement)
Kraft Heinz
07.2018 - 08.2020
Financial Management Program
General Electric (Healthcare & Aviation)
07.2016 - 07.2018
B.A. - Psychology
Indiana University
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