Cristo Paraskevas, MBA

• Walgreens Boots Alliance ($131.5B publicly listed holding company)
• Target Corporation ($68B publicly listed discount retailer)
• Discover Financial Services ($9B publicly listed bank)
• TreeHouse Foods ($7B publicly listed food manufacturer)
• Kemper Corp ($5.2B publicly listed insurance company)
• Building Solutions & Distribution ($5B division of Honeywell International, Inc., $36B publicly listed conglomerate)
• Beam Suntory ($4B privately held spirits company)
• Follett Corporation ($3B privately held book seller and on-campus university retailer)
• WK Kellogg Corporation ($2.7B publicly listed food manufacturer)
• City of Nogales ($33M local city government)
• Forza Construction, Inc. (construction and remodeling company – revenues private)
• Canchola Group, Inc. (restaurant company – revenues private)

• Hands-on and supervisory experience preparing annual operating plans, budgets, and forecasts for multiple companies utilizing top-down, bottom-up, zero-based, and incremental budgeting methods.
• Established the FP&A function for $3.8B Managed Care pharmacy retail business including roles and responsibilities for 4 analyst staff, forecast and planning process, KPI metrics, and profit targets. Developed decision support tools and dashboards, created meaningful insights through ad hoc reporting, and provided ongoing performance assessments and proactive guidance to the Managed Care director.
• Managed P&L performance against plans and forecasts including sales, margins, administrative expense, and other business-related expenses for $200M P&L construction services business unit.
• Led team of 2-5 analysts to provide FP&A support for $400M P&L customer service & processing services (internal production and manufacturing) business units.
• Prepared 3 to 5-year strategic plans for multiple companies in multiple industries, including $3.8B Managed Care pharmacy retail business, $200M strategic growth initiative, $4B indirect procurement strategies department and $150M staff hiring with $15M capital equipment investments.
• Analyzed a $78M multi-year transformation budget for accounting department transformation and uncovered $19M issue with depreciation and capital calculations. Mitigated risk to business case and ensured that project execution met investment return targets set in original budget without issues.
• Developed budgeting, planning, and what-if analysis tools to manage $32M capital and $46M expense program and provided guidance for Controller conversations with executive leadership team.
• Evaluated technology capital spending requests from $50K to $1M+ through NPV and IRR analyses.
• Developed plan cycle playbook for $1.5B expense book of business, identifying key milestones, responsibilities, and contingency plans

• Extensive experience building, improving, and refining budget, forecast, and evaluation models for various types of businesses.
• Developed an integrated forecast, plan, and business management model that seamlessly incorporated information from multiple databases including revenue and margin, headcount, and GL expenses using a Hyperion Essbase platform that became the standard to manage a $5B business and provided full visibility to the business’ P&L.
• Built multi year NPV evaluation model for $120M RFP that incorporated outsourcing & insourcing considerations for processing services business unit. The model ultimately supported the recommendation to continue internal production.
• Created standard templates for NPV and ROI valuation models for indirect sourcing teams used to remove subjectivity and enable business teams to optimize sourcing on over $4B in procurement spend.
• Developed forecast & expense trends models that provided on-demand reporting from Workday and Workday Adaptive to give Corporate Finance leadership visibility into important performance metrics for a $1.5B budget and identified opportunities for improvement in the financial forecasts for the business unit teams.
• Built 6-year NPV cost benefit analysis for $7M cross-company systems investment, directed the strategy for positioning the funding request, and gained support from senior company executives to move forward with project.
• Developed NPV and other decision return variables for $78M multi-year project. Created a budgeting tool and process to manage expenses, created updated forecasts, and tracked $31M savings targets across multiple departments.
• Created automated Access databases to process 300,000+ line items and deliver an actionable report for Accounts Payable team to work with Procurement to reduce $103M Goods Received, Invoice Received transactions hung up in the ERP system. Developed both macros in Access and VBS scripts to create touchless reporting.
• Consolidated disparate Master Data reporting for Vendor domain and developed data quality metrics, data cleansing scorecard, and operational KPIs to drive operational efficiencies and communication on project progress to team and key stakeholders.
• Created an Inbound Backlog forecast model that drove 80%+ improvement in backlog levels to prior year which provided $3M in potential margin to the business. Identified opportunities for improvement in both the Inbound and Outbound areas of the Distribution Services team and developed a Customer Order Aging report that drove outbound 24hr shipping commitments to 90%+ yield rates from a low of 40%.
• Built Standard Cost Excel model to price 1,000+ products across 21 internal/external manufacturing plants and establish manufacturing standards and inventory costing for $1.5B in finished goods; also created Consolidated Plant Standard Cost Comparison Excel model to analyze and compare costs across manufacturing facilities to enable better production decisions for Supply Chain leadership.
• Created multiple NPV evaluation models for $1-10M investment projects for Tier II banking company, assisted in building the business case for funding, and gained approval for strategic projects that lowered expenses and created operating efficiencies.
• Led the development of a KPI model that provided visibility into work units driving volume of Managed Care retail pharmacy operations team, allowing the business to track variances to budget and providing clear business justification for year-end budget changes.
• Executed a Monthly Business Review process for $4B retail pharmacy business driving a new focus on more relevant KPI, variance analysis, and contracting decision support tools.
• Improved budget optimization for retail store construction-spend through a Solver model that utilized over 2,000 variables and constraints that lowered fixture expenses 37% more than the existing spreadsheet.
• Drove $200M in cost savings over 5 years for circular printing by building a complex NPV model and creating a competitive environment with the two vendors.
• Produced a revenue forecast model that predicted end-of-month sales for four regions based on MTD sales results allowing the business leadership team to manage month end goals more effectively.
• Identified a sales opportunity and created reports that delivered $2M in annual sales.
• Developed a revenue cycle management model for construction services business units improving collections and lowering write-offs by over 25% on a $200M P&L.
• Created an Access database to better manage local government assets and developed a year end checklist for the internal staff to prepare for the year-end independent audit that decreased the length of audits from 2 weeks to 1 and a half days.
• Drove multi-year customer service offer strategy analysis that resulted in recommendation to discontinue strategy and delivered $5M in cost reduction and marketing team restructuring.
• Utilized an Excel model to re-engineer the wage garnishment process in accordance with federal, state, and local guidelines eliminating employee’s risk of falling into arrears and the local city government’s compliance exposure.

• Hands on controllership experience for local city government and various large and small companies, including G/L, A/P, A/R, collections, and payroll.
• Directed and participated in month-end and year-end closing processes for a variety of companies and local government, assuring the timeliness and accuracy of data including developing accruals, reconciling accounts, and preparing journal entries.
• Created accounting processes and procedures to support a multi-million-dollar joint venture between two Fortune 50 companies. Responsible for developing and executing R2R, OTC, and P2P accounting including weekly journal entries, reporting, and cash management with a focus on touchless execution.
• Developed project reporting and led the financial management for a $100M margin risk mitigation project and delivered a +$10M improvement over the goal and on time; presented the strategy and results of the project to the full Health and Beauty team (250+ team members) and senior executives of the division.
• Managed the asset management and $33M budget operations for local city government and ensured that financials were prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
• Executed internal reporting including monthly business financial review packages and executive summaries for Executive/Management team for multiple businesses ranging from $200M to $3.8B in revenues and local city government.
• Provided accounting and corporate planning timely variance analysis against multiple baselines for $35M monthly customer service and processing services expenses.
• Responsible for timely submission of daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual results and variance reporting to the district, regional, and corporate leaders for construction services company.
• Functioned as the principal liaison with independent auditors on all accounting, grant, and audit activities for local city government.
• Created and reviewed daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly cash flow reporting and analysis for various companies.
• Coordinated and supervised the year-end audit schedule preparation for local city government finance department driving significant improvements in productivity and minimizing risks identified in previous audits.
• Updated quarterly earnings ‘cheat sheet’ for the CFO, incorporating improved quality control, reducing manual work and time to complete by over 95%

• Developed new team structure, identified KPI, and provided clearer roles and responsibilities on operations team supporting Managed Care retail pharmacy business improving job satisfactions scores by over 14% over the previous year.
• Created balance sheet account reconciliation process to ensure $200M asset balances were wound down on schedule and communicated to controllership, business, and audit team on time during ME.
• Developed monthly journal entry validation and approval process, reducing the review time by 80% and reducing error rate to 0%.
• Created automated database tools to improve pharmacy buyback program reporting by developing reference tables, creating SQL reports and data validation tools, and macros. Updated Excel reporting to reduce time to execute from 3 hours to 5 minutes and added controls to ensure data integrity in source and in results.
• Identified gaps in business decision-making tools and processes, recommended changes to leadership, and led a team of four peers to standardize department calendar, improve the design and functionality of reports, operations, and audits for construction services business.
• Documented “As Is” Invoice Management for Supply Chain group and simplified approach reducing late payments and invoice aging to 1 week from 2-3 months; created controls, tracking mechanisms, and standard process for submitting invoices to Accounts Payable (AP) more effectively.
• Led process improvement projects for local city government including state and federal grant management, payroll processing and reporting, wage garnishments, budget reporting, asset management, and year-end audit cycle driving productivity and dollar savings.
• Improved the cash management process for local restaurateur and trained new staff that saved over 75% of payroll expenses.
• Wrote R programming script that created journal entry support files, performance reporting, and the historical source of truth. The automation included multiple output formats (text files, excel sheets, workbooks) and ready-made templates for uploading into the accounting system.
• Managed and wrote programming for multiple big data analysis projects that reduced existing data processing and reporting time by over 90%, enabling accounting teams to spend more time on valued-added analysis and exception management.
• Established reconciliation process for monthly customer service headcount reporting, KPIs, forecasting and planning for $190M of annual expense. Coordinated discrepancy resolution with accounting, human resources, and business partners.
• Re-engineered cost center accounting structures for two business units with $400M in annual spend, improving visibility to key business indicators, which led to significant changes in business strategy including a $6M cost reduction initiative.
• Identified opportunities to improve unit cost reporting on $130M of annual spend. Updated expense allocation methodology and journal entries for postage and supply costs in production services business unit improving marketing strategy decisions.
• Gathered feedback from business unit FP&A teams to develop an annual planning cycle playbook that addressed pain points in the existing process, improved communication, and set expectations about milestones and deadlines earlier in the cycle.
• Created automated R programming scripts that produced monthly journal entries and reconciliation files to assess data quality on proposed process changes to critical Accounting procedures and identified data quality issues that led to re-prioritization of IT development to ensure data accuracy for future source of Accounting data.

• 28,300 hours of project management including initiation, design, implementation, control and close out phases.
• Hands-on and supervisory experience leading cross-functional project teams to deliver new business, new capabilities, strategic sourcing decisions, and software implementations (both packaged and customized).
• Developed standard project management tools to drive an accounting department transformation involving the reduction of 50 FTE in year 1 of a multi-year project tasked with delivering a 165 FTE reduction in total to drive $14M in annual savings.
• Delivered Product Information Management (PIM) phase of Master Data Management (MDM) initiative. The $0.5M application and data gathering procedures were designed to serve as the source of truth for product information across the company and with key customers and to serve as the foundation for the MDM application suite. Acted as project manager and performed business and data analysis to ensure the project was completed on time and on budget.
• Assumed Project Manager role over two critical initiatives that were behind schedule. Assessed the current state, re-evaluated key deliverables, and milestones. Coordinated key stakeholders to confirm my assessment and reconfigure the project plan. Communicated new proposed timelines and deliverables to Controller and his leadership team and got approval to proceed. Delivered one project with one month delay to original timelines and under budget. Delivered second project within original overall program timelines and on budget.
• Established standard project management methodology, toolkit, final project reporting, and data quality dashboards for Master Data team to ensure initiatives were delivered on time and on budget.
• Managed Master Data Governance implementation project from Initiation through Execution phases and coordinated internal resources and three consulting firms to deliver new technology, more efficient processes, operational metrics, and cleansed master data across the Vendor and Customer domains.
• Performed root cause analysis, identified critical data problems, and designed solutions that improved client’s data quality supplier score from D to A and the supplier data quality ranking from bottom 25% to 1.
• Led a cross-functional team to provide an audit software solution from the requirements definition phase to software selection to implementation, and rollout, on time and on budget.
• Managed and delivered multiple shared-services projects for Consumer Products Group (CPG) company including solutions to ensure product information was shared completely, consistently, accurately, and on time with two of the top three US customers and a global effort with European regulators.
• Automated Month End financial analysis for $340M external manufacturing, implementing improvements in insights and reducing time to produce from 4 hours to 5 minutes.
• Delivered an expense management and forecast process to Distribution Services giving leadership visibility into future warehousing and distribution expenses on a $15M annual budget; guided the project in partnership with Accounts Payable, Accounting, FP&A, and the Distribution team.
• Managed data warehouse initiative for the Supply Chain division developing a prototype using Access databases and Visual Basic Scripts to provide the Operations team with a reporting environment that consolidated data from the Warehouse Management System (WMS), corporate data warehouses, vendor reports, and manual inputs; led a cross functional project team to deliver a SQL Server based data warehouse with an Internet Explorer GUI.
• Coordinated requirements gathering for software solution across three global stakeholders (Americas, Europe, and Asia) and led a large cross-functional team through the RFP and recommendation phase of project.
• Documented existing Budgeting and Standard Cost process for $1.5B Supply Chain department, identified improvement opportunities, and created project proposals and plan to implement recommendations.
• Managed over 30 open sourcing projects with different priorities, deadlines, and audiences (ranging from senior executives to business analysts) on time and with flawless execution helping drive 30%+ in budget cost savings for IT, Marketing, and Property Development divisions.
• Produced journal entry reconciliation tools and processes to manage $200M in write off reserves over 1.5-year period. Assisted in implementing versions of the tool and procedures in other departments within the accounting team to improve account and journal entry reconciliations.
• Re-engineered inventory accounting ME work paper and journal entry process by developing new work paper model and journal entry templates, reducing effort from five days to half a day and from seven resources to two saving $1.2M per year.
• Created electronic G/L and reporting tool in Excel (including VBA macros) for restaurateur improving productivity and lowering the time needed to create reports from 6 hours per day to 15 minutes.
• Audited and reconfigured Supply Chain’s financial reporting and project management tracking for a $40M initiative removing redundant data and providing clearer visibility into the project’s progress and financial impacts.

Microsoft Excel

• Certified Microsoft Office Specialist – Excel 2010 & 2016 Expert
• Expert Level Excel User including data manipulation (analysis, presentation, collaboration), advanced formulas (super-formulas, arrays), functions (mathematical, statistical, logical), data analysis tools, pivot tables and charts, macros (productivity improvements), graphing presentations (charts, trend lines, axis scales, multiple charts), shared data (linking, embedding, web queries), environment customization (toolbars, ribbon), and optimizing print settings.

Microsoft Access

• Advanced Level Access User including: tables (importing, external table links, field definitions, use of primary keys, creating table relationships, inner and outer joins using SQL statements, creation of forms and reports (usage internally and externally, use of input masks, data validation, creation of combo boxes, prompting, sorting / filtering, linked sub-reports, grouping and subtotaling) and queries (creation of append, crosstab and make table query types, use of table joins, group by, user prompts, customizing field names, combining and/or criteria, and nested queries), and macro creation and debugging.

Microsoft PowerPoint

• Expert Level PowerPoint User including creating slide masters (presentation, collaboration), developing custom themes, working with templates and layouts, producing SmartArt graphics (graphs, organization charts, process flows), inserting objects (pictures, symbols, charts, sound), working with embedded and linked objects, managing notes and note master, slide transition and animation, optimizing handout master, and running slide shows.

Microsoft Word

• Expert Level Word User including developing custom styles, managing style guides, creating SmartArt graphics (graphs, organization charts, process flows), inserting objects (pictures, symbols, charts), adding cross-references and hyperlinks, inserting headers and footers, optimizing print settings, and proofing and reviewing documents.

Microsoft Project

• Advanced Level Project User including customizing project-level data, developing custom resource and task reporting, creating project & program templates, creating resource load plans and budgets, setting multiple baselines, managing program and project level initiatives & resources, and projecting schedules and budgets for programs and projects.

R Studio

• Advanced Level R Studio User, including process automation, custom formula creation, repeatable data analysis, and creation of custom analytics & reporting from large data sets.

Other

• Working experience with the following software packages: Microsoft Teams, Hyperion Enterprise, Hyperion Essbase, WebFocus, SAP, Analysis for Office (SAP), Oracle, GL & Report Wand (Oracle), Business Objects, Winshuttle, Blackline, Workday, Workday Adaptive, Tableau, Python, and Microstrategies.
• Automation Anywhere Certified Advanced RPA (Robotics Process Automation) Professional.
• Created Visual Basic Scripts to automate repetitive reporting and email functions.
• SQL programming through MySQL, MS Access, and other SQL-related tools

• Carnegie Mellon University – Graduate School of Industrial Administration, MBA
• ITESM, B.S. Economics

• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification (Pending Renewal)

• Bilingual proficiency in Spanish
• Working proficiency in Greek