Akanksha Lamba

Experienced Finance and Project Manager with extensive experience of financial planning for major Banking, Financial Services, IT Product industry and FMCG An adaptable and responsible professional with an organized and proactive approach to problem solving with 10+Yrs of Financial Planning, Performance Management, Budgeting and team mentoring

Sr Finance Business Partner (Oct’18-Mar’19), Sr Finance Lead(Apr’19-Current) Unilever (London)

  Reduced monthly forecast variance from ~20% to ~5% by thoroughly examining past expenses and collaborating with the budget owners to ensure the most up to date information was incorporated in the forecast

 Performed analysis of financial key performance indicators (KPI), making predictions and advising the business partners by "telling the story" including commentary on variance for budget owners & leadership 

 Single point of contact for performance management of a business unit of approx. £80M YTD budget 

 Successfully lead a critical project for the organization to regionalize the global cost to reduce tax impact at UK head-office by liaising with Country and Global VPs for the budget, cost structure and methodology of transferring the cost.

Principal IT Finance Partner (Aug’16 –Jul’18) Symantec Corporation (Pune, India) Symantec Corporation (Mountain View, California)

 Transitioned the role from California to India and Improved budgeting and forecasting processes significantly reducing existing modelling errors and turnaround by one week. 

 Owner for Service Financial Management, performing critical analysis of service finance reports, cost drivers and other KPIs/ performance metrics. 

 Ensured accuracy in monthly closing including accrual, prepaid amortization, inter- Co. transactions, reporting of financial performance, operating budgets, monthly financial statements & reconciliations for the Cyber Security business unit within the organization. 

 Being process champion, educated Service Line managers about quality and compliance guidelines making continuous improvements in new and existing business processes.  Operational Benchmarks for Symantec IT CIO, highlighting leakages and suggesting cost saving levers. 

 Facilitated project sprints and provided weekly status reports to all stakeholders 

IT Finance Lead (Mar’16 –Aug’16) TMF Group (Pune, India) 

 Lead Analysis for current and past trends in key performance indicators including all areas of revenue, cost of sales, expenses and capital expenditures 

 Monitored performance indicators, highlighting trends and analysing causes of unexpected variance 

 Analysed complex financial information and reports to provide accurate and timely financial recommendations to management for decision making purposes 

Sr Analyst (May’13 –Jun’14), Lead Analyst(July’14-Jan’16) American Express (Gurgaon, India) American Express (Toronto, Canada) 

 Process Owner of preparation, validation & consolidation of entities submissions to support AXP SEC and Regulatory Reporting filings 

 Appointed as a SPOC for Singapore market: responsibilities include preparation of regulatory reports for Monetary Authority for Singapore (MAS) 

 Selected by the Senior leadership team to present a session of “Learn2Enrich”, an interactive classroom training session on soft skills for Finance Controllership Global team (~400 FTE’s) 

Team Leader (Jun’12 –Jan’13) Tata Consultancy Services – E-Serve Limited (Mumbai, India) 

 Reviewed proper allocation of Cost and expenses under WON/Swon (Cost Centre) 

 Highlighted discrepancies of cost and getting them reversed by finance department 

 Team lead responsibility for allocating activity and performance management for the team of 24 FTEs

MBA (2010 - 2012)

  MBA in Finance & Marketing from WBUT University, Kolkata, India 

Graduation (2007 - 2010) 

 Bachelor’s in Commerce – Panjab University, India