Michael Clayworth

Accomplished Financial Controller and Finance Business Partner with extensive experience overseeing multi-million-pound programmes and joint ventures across financial services, energy, and infrastructure sectors. Proven track record in delivering strategic insights, robust forecasting, and cost control in project-driven environments. Adept at building finance frameworks aligned with business strategy, collaborating with cross-functional teams to drive performance, manage risks, and support investment decisions.

Protiviti | Associate Consultant (Contract)                                                      Jul 2024 – Mar 2025

Onboarded on a Consultancy basis to support a Global Asset Management Group (cUS$400B AUM) during SAP S/4HANA ERP implementation under Finance Transformation Programme.

• Defined and executed global financial reporting strategy across 8 Centres of Excellence (CoEs), eliminating 75% of legacy reports to streamline decision-making and performance tracking.
• Collaborated with technical team to produce a Reporting & Analytics strategy document for inclusion in $30M Request for Proposal (RFP), initiating vendor selection for System Integrator (SI) partner.
• Developed a Target Operating Model (TOM) with 3 Operational Heads to align month-end reporting with SOX compliance and global structure.
• Mapped future-state reporting for Revenue, Expenses, and Compensation CoEs, optimising financial data design in alignment with SAP S/4HANA best practices.

Great British Nuclear (GBN) | Senior Finance Project Accountant (Contract)  Apr 2024 – Jul 2024

Brought in to evaluate and enhance financial controls, reporting accuracy, and cost oversight for the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Nuclear Technologies Programme, underpinned by £58M public funding.

• Conducted a full evaluation of existing finance operations, identifying material control gaps and implementing enhanced cost control procedures to improve data accuracy by 36% and accelerate reporting timelines.
• Assessed data integrity of reports produced from the legacy Xero finance system, validated and prepared datasets for clean and auditable migration to the new finance platform.
• Investigated 4 major commercial contracts covering 60% of the £58M budget and identified a potential overspend risk due to milestone misalignment. Partnered with operational teams to rectify forecasts and enhance contract cost control, directly supporting programme integrity and public accountability.
• Developed improved financial control frameworks to support accurate forecasting, milestone-based payment tracking, and commitment control for future SMR development phases.

Career Break                                                                                                       Sep 2021 – Apr 2024

• Taken time off due to family medical emergency.

HSBC | Senior Finance Lead (Contract)                                                          Oct 2021 – Aug 2022

Appointed to support the Head of Transformation Finance and Regulatory Change Director to improve cost visibility, enhance financial control, and drive performance across critical global regulatory change programme.

• Delivered robust global financial governance framework, aligning programme cost controls with strategy and delivering £75M global regulatory change programme within budget despite 10% ($5M) funding cuts.
• Streamlined financial reporting models in compliance with IFRS, enhancing transparency and simplicity across global regions APAC, Middle East, Europe, and North America. Reduced toll-gate approval timelines by 40%.
• Automated global cost reporting using Qlik Sense dashboards, improving stakeholder access. enabling self-service insights and reducing manual reporting cycles by 90%. 
• Mentored and upskilled PMO analysts to drive improvements in operational cost governance, increased Procure-to-Pay (P2P) efficiency by 20% and forecast accuracy by 50%.
• Implemented Accounts Receivable (AR) legal cost recovery process for £3M of Syndicated Loans from multiple external financial institutions.

Lloyds Banking Group | Senior Project Financial Controller (Contract)     Jan 2015 – Oct 2021

Led financial oversight, cost control and reporting across four major transformation programmes (£280M+) including corporate pensions, insurance operations, GDPR compliance, and Schroders Joint Venture. Oversaw end-to-end cost control process, financial governance, budgeting, forecasting, and compliance with IFRS and internal controls.

• Schroders Joint Venture (Mar 19 - Oct 21): Lloyds sought to create market leading wealth management with Schroders’ investment expertise; upon recommendation spearheaded the overall financial control and reporting of strategic joint venture partnership.
• Led £195M financial control of strategic Joint Venture, presenting financial performance, KPIs, risks, opportunities and forecasts to the Executive Steering Group (ESG) and senior stakeholders.
• Partnered with cross-functional teams to deliver business case modelling, ROI, funding analysis, and strategic finance recommendations.
• Developed operational finance framework and implemented joint venture recharge and Transition Service Agreement (TSA) process, enabling migration and cost recovery to joint venture.
• Managed commitment control, vendor invoicing and service contract reconciliation, achieving 100% prompt payment code commitment and adherence to SLA targets
• Records Management GDPR Compliance (Jan 18 – Mar 19): Lloyds Banking Group embarked on reforming entire data base and systems to align and comply with GDPR legislation; asked to join and delivered financial oversight and control.
• Secured £55M in phased investment through robust business case development and financial impact analysis. 
• Built and operationalised cost tracking framework from the ground up, including budget setup, cost reporting tools, monthly forecasting, and CapEx/RevEx classification. Efficiency of framework catalysed a £2.1M saving.
• Introduced quantitative risk analysis inputs, clarified asset depreciation schedules, and advised IT Finance on £15M IT CapEx spend alignment with IFRS to enhance visibility and reporting compliance.
• Rolled out Clarity Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) system across the programme to automate resource cost management and optimised month-end process which increased accuracy and efficiency by 30%.
• Insurance Customer Delivery Transformation (Jul 15 – Dec 17): External audit highlighted critical operational deficiencies in Insurance Operations, lack of corrective action would result in Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) being notified; Handpicked by Programme Director to join Senior Leadership team.
• Delivered £21M cost control programme responding to FCA audit risks; instituted rigorous cost governance, change control tracking, and reporting structures to support turnaround delivery. 
• Negotiated IFRS CapEx treatment for £2M data infrastructure with IT Finance, enhancing business case value and CapEx/RevEx balance for compliance and funding approval.
• Finance Lead for Internal Audit review and demonstrated comprehensive financial integrity and accountability, attained highest rating for programme.
• Produced business case that outlined requirements to address operational deficiencies highlighted by external audit, business case approved and complimented by Investment Committee.
• Corporate Pensions Transformation (Jan 15 – Jun 15): Enabled stabilisation of corporate pensions operations and auto-enrolment backlog reduction; delivered programme closure
• Delivered project financial close activities, including final cost reconciliations, risk/opportunity analysis and stakeholder MI reporting
• Settled £13M complex funding structure between business units, resulting in elevated Net Promoter Scores and award recognition.

Relevant Earlier Career                                                                                                                        

• Programme Accountant (Contract), Tesco Bank - Personal Current Accounts (PCA)               Oct 2013 - Aug 2014
• Finance Lead (Contract), RBS - Divestment of ABN Amro                                                              Jun 2013 – Oct 2013
• Group Cost Manager (Contract), Barclays Bank – Functional Reporting rollout                         Jan 2012 – Jan 2013
• Programme Accountant (Contract), Lloyds TSB – HBOS Finance integration                            May 2009 – Dec 2011
• Project Accountant (Contract), HSBC – Global Finance Change Transformation (SPV)           May 2008 – Apr 2009

Certificate in International Reporting Standards (IFRS), ACCA, UK

Certified Practising Accountant, CPA Australia

Bachelor of Commerce, Accounting and Finance, Griffith University, Australia