Meet our DLC Finance and Accounting Consultant, Andrew Ramirez!

Favorite things to do outside of the office: Outside of work I enjoy time with my wife, friends, family, and two doggies (Pomeranians: Bon Bon & Pixie). When I get time to myself, I enjoy anything that goes fast so you’ll catch me riding motorcycles, driving, or flying (in that order).

How has your background impacted your experience as a consultant? I enjoy the aspect that all business relies on finance at its core, despite the product or service provided. Given that, I’ve taken the approach of learning various financial skillsets across multiple industries. With my background in aerospace/defense, investment management, consumer credit, healthcare, and finally M&A consulting I have a breadth of corporate finance knowledge that is value-add to our clients. I also enjoy the project approach where I can focus on the client’s needs and show that I am dedicated to their overall success.

What’s a typical workday like for you? In my current and previous consulting experience the typical day is full of communication and focused performance. I usually start the day catching up on any new emails/actions and continue with ensuring I complete anything from the prior night that may have carried over. From there I’d continue onto today’s tasks ranging from constructing a new finance model in excel or analyzing a client’s data for new findings and preparing to report them to management. Towards the end of the day, I’d make sure to communicate with my team the day’s completed activities and what’s to go for the remainder of the week and project in general.

What motivates you to wake up and go to work every day? “Every challenge is an opportunity to succeed.” That’s one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite professors. It’s true in our daily work as well as life in general. I feel that If I take it upon myself to do my best and exceed the client’s needs, my work will speak for itself.

What kind of work have you been doing?  I recently completed my first DLC project which saw me improving a medical device manufacturer’s cash management and forecasting processes. The client had various models and tools in place but communication and ending balances did not align across teams. Our goal was to create a new 13-week cash model that the team could use for actuals reporting and forecasting of cash flows up to 12 months out. Working alongside another DLC consultant we created a model that did just that and allowed the client to quickly use the model for future reporting to the PE sponsoring company. I look forward to my next DLC project wherein I can assist a team with all their FP&A needs.

Where did you deliver the most value to your client? As part of my first DLC project, I helped deliver fresh perspective and streamlined reporting to a medical device manufacturer. I entered the project not knowing the current flow of data or processes in place. However, quickly after understanding the systems and reports used, I saw the need for increased communication and alignment of data sources. From here I centralized the source of data to one team rather than 5+. This housed all the data with finance and created a data-push rather than data-pull approach. Now the finance team controlled the cash forecasting process ensuring they controlled the flow of data from key contributors to the finance forecast.

Linking data to finance and accounting, explain environments that have had lack of reporting infrastructure/inefficiencies and how have you brought organization and solutions-implementation. My first DLC project requested just this, an improvement to current processes and models used to forecast cash. Upon starting the project, I quickly saw the need to both align data sources as well as improve modeling techniques. Many files had hard-coded figures and no checks to other forecasted balances or figures. Given this, there was not one core model that could summarize the pieces of the whole cleanly. With this foundation I worked across treasury, accounting, and finance to create a new cash model that used all the same data sources but had checks to said sources as well as linkage to reported figures that could be updated live.

What’s your process? I am very goal orientated which is a major reason I’ve enjoyed consultancy. My client has a goal, and I am there to assist in making it happen. In each project, I first seek information to understand the situation and those involved, both up and down the chain. It’s best to understand those requesting the action as well as delivering to it. At this point I have an idea of what we’re working with to meet the goal and I can summarize it for the team. This communication is key early and throughout the project as it keeps everyone involved and focused on the daily actions of the goal. Working on the project, I enjoy focusing on key deliverables and adding additional value where applicable. Once all is complete, I also work to provide desk instructions so that those who continue the process have full understanding and can modify as needed.

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