1. CHANIKA AMARASENA
No 337, Sydenham Road, Croydon, CR0 2EL : 07735322078 : chani_a@yahoo.com
Managerial skills
• Deputising for Head of Connections, when necessary, as the first point of interface with the Connections business, to co-
ordinate and be accountable for the Management Accounting, Credit Control and Income Processing Teams.
• Management of a part qualified accountant and a Finance graduate;
o Explaining the Connections business processes, results analysis, JOBWIP report and the month end process as
well as the production of the Management Accounts.
o Setting their annual objectives and guiding them to achieve their targets.
o Identify key areas for improvement and assist with a development plan.
Technical skills and knowledge
• Ability to provide commercial finance expertise from a balanced viewpoint, with eight years of CIMA post-qualified
experience.
• Skilled in providing timely, accurate and results-oriented management information, through hands-on experience in
SAP(over ten years’ experience), SAP Business Warehouse and the use of BEX Analyser & MS-Office applications.
• Strong financial and commercial analytical skills to facilitate forecasting, budgeting and commercial planning.
• Experienced in driving goal congruence within cross-functional teams consisting of representatives from Connections
finance, Network Operations, Customer Projects Commercial team and Design team, through effective communication and
flexible co-ordination.
Qualifications
• Associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) UK since 2008 - (Qualified in 2007)
Experience (thirteen years of commercial & financial experience - eight years post qualified)
• Planning Accountant – UK Power Networks – Jan 2014 to date
• Financial Analyst / Operational Accountant – UK Power Networks – October 2007 to Dec 2013
• Product Hierarchy Controller – Unilever Plc – 2007 March to August
• CIMA finals – 2006 August to 2007 February
• Assistant Project Manager – Ceylinco Selna (Pvt) LTD (Sri Lanka) – 2004 June to 2006 July
• Executive Sourcing - MAS Holdings Group ( Sri Lanka) – June 2003 to May 2004
• Senior Executive Marketing – Ceylinco Securities and Financial Services Ltd (Sri Lanka) – 2002 January to 2003 May
Planning Accountant: UK Power Networks – (UKPN) – Jan 2014 to date
My role as the Planning Accountant in Connections (Turnover of £240m) involves the following;
• Deputising for Head of Connections Finance and taking ownership of operational issues/ resolving the issues and co-
ordinating activities in his absence.
• Assess the drivers of directorate target and the key challenges. Segment the target to individual business units after
analysing the order book. Develop Scenarios to assist the Senior Management Team (SMT) to finalise the bottom up
budget and challenge the process to prevent sub-optimisation. The bottom up budgets are then consolidated to
understand the overall position for the Directorate and to identify any shortfalls. Present the budget to the SMT and
EMT and explain the challenges within the targets. Once finalised, to upload the budget into SAP and produce the
Budget Pack with KPIs.
• Produce forecast templates, analyse and challenge the submissions and present the forecasts to the SMT and EMT.
• Provide commentary for variance analysis for Budgets and LBE to central planning as well as carry out the LMCO
reconciliation.

2. • Continuous improvements to the Budget and Forecasting processes – Improvement of templates, developing KPIs,
Building checks into the system to avoid errors.
• Monitor the year end position against targets and assist the Head of Connections to position Connections.
• Manage the Finance graduate and assist the individual to develop his skills.
• The key point of contact for External Auditors to ensure compliance with UK and HK GAAP.
• Maintaining key accruals/ provisions data, updating quarterly claims reports and brief Head of Connections, the relevant
departments and the auditors.
• Produce ad-hoc reports, such as, trend reports, income analysis, P&L to JOBWIP reconciliations to the Head of
Connections.
• Produce the Connections tables/report pages and provide narrative for EMT packs.
• Understand, analyse the cost drivers & cost pools and report concerns as well as provide recommendations on the
Overhead recovery model to SMT and EMT.
• Active participcation in the Business Transformation Programme through understanding the new processes, comparing
with the business as usual processes, identifying defects/ bugs in the new processes and providing feedback to the
ERP consultants, holding regular meetings to ensure the defects are fixed and the process is working as it should,
educating users in Finance and in the Connections business as well as providing guidance notes to ensure smooth
transition.
• Improve the Management Accounts process by developing an effective way of producing the P&Ls and aligning both
sets of Profit and Loss accounts whereby reducing the time from half a day to five minutes.
Financial Analyst/ Operational Accountant: UK Power Networks – (UKPN) – Oct 2007 to Jan 2014
My role as the financial analyst /operational accountant (Customer Projects, turnover of £90mn) in Connections involved the following
key accountabilities;
• Ensuring the adherence to UK GAAP, IFRS and Regulatory standards in maintaining compliance of the sector through
monitoring and comparing project turnover, direct and indirect costs, work-in-progress, EBITDA, receivables & payables
against plans, and making periodic financial adjustments.
• Producing monthly Management Accounts which includes summary view of performance, profit and loss accounts, key
performance indicators, analysis of indirect costs, trend analysis, ratios, overview of loss making projects, and providing
commentaries which would explain the variances and key deliverables in the month. Continuous improvement to the
Management Accounts and changes to KPIs are carried out as necessary.
• Effective communication with the SMT by providing financial reports to facilitate the decision making process.
• Regular meetings with operational staff and SMT are held to explain financial statements, trends and future targets.
• Extensive analysis of the current portfolio of service orders and discuss the performance of key projects with designers, lead
design engineers, Commercial team and the quantity & delivery planners. The exercise also enables challenging on delivery
lead times, identifying the slow movers/loss makers / potential loss makers and carry out in-depth investigations together
with the quantity surveyors.
• Communicating region/ project performance and providing necessary explanations to regulatory reporting team, external
auditors and central finance.
• Preparing flash forecasts and GAP analysis to SMT on a weekly basis for monitoring and controlling performance in
achieving the monthly budgets.
• Effective forecasting on a monthly basis, budgeting and medium term planning (MTP – 5 year plan) for the region and assist
in long term planning.
• Ad-hoc reporting within the finance department to identify key areas of focus and producing policy guidelines on best
practice.
• Together with the Head of Connections Finance documented the service order business closure process to meet the
expectation of the Regulatory Reporting requirement. It is also my responsibility to ensure that the guidelines are followed
and challenge deviances.
• Ad-hoc review of processes to ensure compliance with documented process. Compilation of process documents upon
requirement.

3. • Monthly review of the payroll report and the man power report to identify inconsistencies & report in the Management
Accounts, reconciliations between the two reports and produce the monthly FTE report.
• Creating BEX queries, modifying BEX queries based on changes to profit centres or the reporting business units or the
Hierarchy.
• Conducting SAP, Excel training and finance workshops for non-finance staff.
Unilever House – 2007 (March to August)
Unilever is a multinational company with over 400 brands and products sold across over 180 countries. Unilever was implementing a
new system across Europe and my role as the Product Hierarchy Controller for the MSH Foods Vanguard Hierarchy System involved
the following key responsibilities:
• Co-ordinating the implementation of the new system across Europe by providing guidance to counterparties.
• Managing the data migration project to a new European Transactional System.
• Maintenance of product hierarchies in the functional Management Information System.
Ceylinco Selna Ltd (CSL) – June 2004 to July 2006
MAS Holdings – June 2003 to May 2004
Ceylinco Securities and Financial Services Ltd (CSFSL) – January 2002 to May 2003
References can be provided upon request.