Mark Baker

Results-driven with extensive experience in business process design and implementation in a complex global organisation using continuous improvement principles to deliver sustainable savings. Expert in process automation, systems design and data architecture to provide cost assurance, particularly in optimising Procure to Pay (P2P) and Invoice to Pay (I2P) processes for regularly recurring costs. Proven abilities in problem solving and stakeholder management at all levels, collaborating with, and leading, cross-functional teams, to deliver innovative solutions which enhance efficiency and operational excellence in support of organisational objectives.

Commercial Management & Financial Modelling @ British Telecommunications PLC,  2003 to 2025

• Consistently delivered year-on-year savings of ~4% on a base of ~£65M of recurring operating expense through an annual cost reduction programme covering all the principal activities. Matrix managed a team of over 100 from many departments in a coordinated and collaborative approach.
• Identified and eliminated wasted costs of typically £2M each year through a cost assurance programme I initiated to identify invoices being settled but which hadn’t been validated.
• Provided daily support to finance and other colleagues in managing an inventory of bought-in costs comprising >9,000 services delivered in 159 countries from >450 suppliers being provided to 96 legal entities with a total annual value of ~£65M.
• Enabled the maximisation of revenues and the optimisation of margins by developing and implementing a method for interpreting bought-in costs to enable them to be allocated against the appropriate products for the purpose of establishing the cost floor above which the pricing of customer bids could be established. This avoided under-selling due to artificially high prices based on costs perceived to be higher than those actually being incurred and avoided overselling due to artificially low prices based on costs perceived to be lower than those actually being incurred.
• Enabled the avoidance of penalties for late payment of invoices, the reduction in the number of disputes with suppliers, and the minimisation of accounts payable resource by managing a commercial inventory of bought-in costs in a way that enabled the timely validation and settlement of invoices and, thereby, not only drove towards compliance with the UK Government’s “Prompt Payment Policy” but also protected the reputation of the company as a reliable customer and business partner. This also helped improve financial reporting and the management of accruals.
• Enabled the avoidance of corporation tax that would otherwise have resulted from the artificial over-statement of profits and enabled the prevention of tax evasion that would otherwise have resulted from the artificial under-statement of profits. This was achieved by ensuring that bought-in costs were accurately recorded against the legal entities incurring them so that they could be internally traded appropriately with the legal entities owning those costs.
• Implemented a means by which liabilities for corporation tax in multiple countries could be avoided by defining a process by which the appropriate legal entity to be used when procuring services could be easily identified.

Process Automation, Systems & Data Design @ British Telecommunications PLC,  2003 to 2025

• Provided the means by which the effort required to manage bought-in costs to be significantly reduced and by which the financial reporting of those costs could be vastly improved. This was achieved by designing and implementing a commercial inventory containing all the necessary details and which could be maintained and accessed by users across the business.
• Minimised the discrepancies between related data in various systems and, hence, avoid the disruption that such discrepancies cause and minimise the effort required to resolve those discrepancies by defining data standards and applying them to records in the affected systems.
• Designed and implemented a means for minimising the effort required to capture and record to the required quality level the commercial details of services being ordered to be fed to a commercial inventory. An order management system was augmented not just to mandate the necessary details but also to enhance the process to ensure that those placing such orders followed the necessary steps so that the effort required to resolve any disputes that might subsequently arise would be minimised.
• Eliminated the effort, along with the need for the associated expertise, to transfer from an order management system to a commercial inventory the details of services being ordered. This was achieved by designing and implementing the automation of the transfer of these details. Further benefits of this automation was the elimination of discrepancies caused by the previous manual re-keying of data and also having the details transferred in real time, rather than on a monthly manual schedule, which reduced the effort required to create and subsequently reverse accruals.

Satellite Systems Operations & Planning @ British Telecommunications PLC prior to 2003

• Represented BT and the UK & Ireland at meetings of the inter-governmental telecommunications satellite consortium (INTELSAT) and preparation of business cases presented to the BT Board for participation in the procurement of satellites and launches. Managed the CapEx budget and OpEx budget for BT’s satellite operations, each amounting to around £100M p.a..
• Established, planned, and managed the UK centric satellite operations for the ‘Concert’ joint venture which BT established with American operator AT&T, with responsibility for satellite earth station projects and satellite capacity acquisition and also for the internal transfer-charging agreements between Concert and BT for the provision of services and effort.
• Re-integrated Concert’s UK satellite operations back in to BT as part of the unwind of Concert.
• Managed the integration in to BT of the satellite network in Latin America of the ‘Comsat’ organisation, which had been acquired, and managed the development of that network as part of a ‘Prosperity’ programme to augment BT’s global portfolio and increase revenue.
• Led project to migrate services from BT’s Goonhilly satellite earth to BT’s Madley satellite earth station to facilitate the termination of satellite operations at Goonhilly and deliver savings.

MBA, Middlesex Business School, London.

BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The City University, London.