Parul Sharma
Malvern
Summary
Results-driven Financial Planning and Analysis professional with 8+ years of experience in financial planning, analysis, and reporting across manufacturing and technology sectors. Expert in leveraging OneStream, SAP, Power BI, SQL, and Advanced Excel to enhance forecasting accuracy, budgeting efficiency, and strategic business insights. Proven track record of improving gross margins, increasing data accuracy by 20%, and streamlining reporting processes to accelerate executive decision-making. Adept at partnering cross-functionally with operations, supply chain, and commercial teams to deliver actionable intelligence that drives profitability and long-range financial planning.
Overview
10
10
years of professional experience
Work History
FP&A Manager
PQ Corporation
Malvern, PA
06.2022 - Current
- Led DSO and DPO analysis to identify vendors for payment-term renegotiation (30 → 45 days), improving DPO by 3 days and driving $1.6M cash-flow improvement in a single quarter.
- Drove product and customer mix optimization through margin analytics, shifting volume toward higher-margin offerings and achieving a 4% increase in overall contribution margin.
- Analyzed monthly financial performance against budget, forecast, and prior year to identify variance drivers and recommend actions that improved executive decision-making.
- Delivered board- and executive-level reporting that enhanced leadership visibility and informed strategic initiatives.
- Developed interactive sales and profitability dashboards in Power BI, providing real-time margin insights and enabling faster, data-driven pricing and product-mix decisions.
- Led comprehensive Price-Volume-Mix (PVM) analyses to uncover margin leakage and pricing opportunities, driving a 20% increase in gross margin.
- Directed the long-range financial planning (LRFP) process, securing executive approval and funding for the $80M acquisition of a European business.
- Performed plant-level P&L analyses to pinpoint profit drivers, streamline cost structures, and recommend production-mix shifts that maximized profitability.
- Wrote optimized SQL queries with complex JOINs and CTEs to consolidate multi-source data (SAP, OneStream, BPC), improving reporting accuracy by 20% and eliminating manual data reconciliation.
- Modernized financial reporting systems (OneStream, SAP, BPC, Power BI), cutting reporting errors by 15% and improving data accuracy by 20%.
- Standardized ad-hoc reporting templates, boosting team efficiency by 30% and reducing management-request turnaround time by two days.
- Implemented FP&A best practices to strengthen forecasting precision, analytical rigor, and business insight delivery for the senior leadership team.
Senior Financial Analyst
PEI-Genesis, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA
01.2022 - 06.2022
- Developed standardized reporting and planning frameworks that delivered actionable insights into historical performance and future growth opportunities.
- Served as the primary finance liaison to executive leadership, translating financial data into recommendations that guided strategic decisions.
- Automated data extraction and report generation, saving 40 hours per month and allowing the team to focus on higher-value strategic analysis.
- Led the annual budgeting and forecasting cycle across sales, cost, and capital planning, improving forecast accuracy and enabling more informed management decisions.
- Enhanced key financial reporting processes—including working-capital, inventory, SG&A, and weekly sales analyses, as well as the monthly Sales & Earnings Flash report—strengthening visibility into operational performance.
Financial Analyst
NATURE’S SOY
Philadelphia, PA
07.2021 - 12.2021
- Analyzed customer-level profitability by integrating freight and logistics costs to identify high-margin accounts and key growth segments.
- Delivered data-driven insights that supported leadership in pricing, customer-mix, and expansion decisions.
- Strengthened financial reporting integrity through cross-team collaboration and rigorous data validation.
- Managed reporting, compliance, and control projects, producing insights that informed business-growth initiatives.
Financial Analyst
APPIRIO – A WIPRO COMPANY
Jaipur, RJ, India
10.2018 - 12.2019
- Led financial operations for marketing, travel, and accounts-payable functions, cutting departmental deficits by 20%.
- Implemented process-improvement policies that enhanced productivity and streamlined delegation.
- Redesigned the travel-expense policy with a real-time tracking system, reducing wasteful spending by 10% and saving $25K annually.
- Partnered with cross-functional teams (Sales, Marketing, Operations) to strengthen financial governance and reporting accuracy.
Assistant Manager – Costing and Inventory
MARATHON ELECTRIC INDIA PVT. LTD
New Delhi, India
12.2017 - 10.2018
- Enhanced internal controls and governance by leading quarterly and annual physical-inventory audits.
- Developed annual operating and profit plans and prepared rolling forecasts aligned with organizational targets.
- Delivered budgeting and variance analyses that guided management in cost-optimization and production decisions.
- Streamlined inventory-reconciliation processes, reducing data discrepancies by 25% and improving reporting accuracy.
Cost Accountant
EVEREADY INDUSTRIES INDIA PVT. LTD
New Delhi, India
05.2016 - 10.2017
- Maintained complete, accurate accounting of inventory transactions, ensuring consistency between item and account ledgers.
- Captured production costs, variances, and COGS in real time to produce precise gross-margin analysis.
- Identified and resolved standard-costing anomalies, eliminating major causes of production-variance spikes and improving cost control.
- Led physical-inventory counts to ensure accurate stock valuations for financial reporting.
Education
M.S. - Accounting & Business Analytics
University of Pittsburgh, Katz Graduate School of Business
Pittsburgh, PA05-2021
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Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI)
New Delhi, India11-2015
Skills
- Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A): Forecasting, Budgeting, Variance Analysis, P&L Management, Financial Modeling, Long-Range Planning, Scenario Planning, Cost Control, Cash-Flow Forecasting, Management Reporting
- Business & Data Analysis: KPI Tracking, Trend Analysis, Price-Volume-Mix (PVM) Analysis, Margin Optimization, Ad-hoc Reporting, Root Cause Analysis, Data Reconciliation, Forecast Accuracy Improvement
- Tools & Systems: OneStream, SAP BPC, SAP ECC, Workday Adaptive, Hyperion, Power BI, Tableau, SQL, Microsoft Excel (Advanced), VBA, Python, Power Query
- Financial Operations & Governance: Consolidation, Month-End Close, Audit Support, CapEx / OpEx Analysis, Working Capital Optimization, Standard Costing, Inventory Control
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Business Partnering with Operations, Supply Chain, and Commercial Teams; Executive Reporting; Process Automation; Continuous Improvement; Strategic Decision Support
Websites
Timeline
FP&A Manager
PQ Corporation
06.2022 - Current
Senior Financial Analyst
PEI-Genesis, Inc.
01.2022 - 06.2022
Financial Analyst
NATURE’S SOY
07.2021 - 12.2021
Financial Analyst
APPIRIO – A WIPRO COMPANY
10.2018 - 12.2019
Assistant Manager – Costing and Inventory
MARATHON ELECTRIC INDIA PVT. LTD
12.2017 - 10.2018
Cost Accountant
EVEREADY INDUSTRIES INDIA PVT. LTD
05.2016 - 10.2017
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Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI)
M.S. - Accounting & Business Analytics
University of Pittsburgh, Katz Graduate School of Business