Andy Schaer

andy schaer

United Kingdom

Bio Summary

Profile Project Lead/Change Manager with 20 years’+ experience in compliance, audit, financial and risk management consulting/change management and 7 years in Investment Banking. Chartered accountant with background in consultancy dealing with C-level and broad range of clients. Focused on transformation, innovation and agility successfully led 17 risk management projects (including compliance, regulatory and non-regulatory), 14 finance transformation projects and 4 technology/operations focused projects.

Key Skills

• Project Delivery: Oversight and hands on management and delivery of complex projects and change management (overseeing and running a portfolio of projects) in Financial Services and other industries. In-depth expertise in organic and in-organic growth initiatives, process improvements, functional and operational transformation with very high client satisfaction and trusted client relationships (internal/external)

• Commercial: Commercial negotiator paired with business development and bringing to market new service offerings (regulatory and non-regulatory driven) including negotiating new territory

• International Leadership: Leading global transformation teams, recruitment of, and mentor to, senior managers and team members (located in EU, US and India)

• Technology: MS Office Suite, Visualisation and Analytics Tools (e.g. Tableau, Spotfire), Risk Management Tools (SMART, NICE Actimize, Digital Reasoning), Process Optimisation (various ERP systems)

• Languages: German – mother tongue; English – fluent; French – basic

Employment History

VZ VermögensZentrum

Senior Project Manager

VZ VermögensZentrum

April 2020 - April 2022

London, UK

Accelerate VZ Group’s UK expansion project through acquisition of a UK ‘springboard’ platform within two years and integrate into group processes (VZ is largest Swiss Financial Advisor; ticker VZN:SW).
Barclays

Change Director

Barclays

June 2014 - November 2019

London, UK

Interact with and advise senior management around the change agenda/strategy with solid understanding of processes and responsibilities. Managed global teams delivering against stringent regulatory commitments and the functio ...see more
Accenture

Senior Project Manager

Accenture

February 2012 - May 2014

London, UK

Established as one of the compliance experts within Accenture, especially in market surveillance and conduct risk management. Successfully facilitated industry roundtables. Primarily worked with Financial Services clients in ...see more
Kurt Salmon

Senior Project Manager

Kurt Salmon

June 2004 - January 2012

London, UK

Involved in the whole sales cycle from exploratory meetings, pricing, contract negotiations, development of delivery approach through to staffing. Worked in Financial Services, Retail, Oil & Gas, Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, ...see more
PwC

Senior Project Manager

PwC

June 1999 - May 2004

London, UK

Worked with large UK based banks (Group and Investment Banks). Managed project teams of up to 15 consultants around Finance transformation and the development of new banking solutions. Worked across the whole project lifecycl ...see more
PwC

Auditor

PwC

June 1995 - May 1999

Zürich, Switzerland

• Looked after small, medium and large sized Swiss and foreign banks, security dealers, investment funds and non-financial services companies • Audit of financial reporting (IAS and US GAAP), internal control systems, du ...see more

Selected Project Experience

Project Description:
• Identified and directly approached target company within 3 months of joining (avoiding high brokerage fees). Effectively led through commercial negotiations and due diligence process (legal, tax, financial and regulatory) resulting in 50% external fee savings and successful completion of acquisition at a fair value • Completed year-1 integration strengthening governance, reporting (including data quality, KPIs, dashboards) and people processes resulting in non-surprise decision making and increased accountability • Enabled forward looking culture through strategic business plan with aspiring organic and in-organic growth objectives targeting threefold ‘assets under management’ growth and increased profit margin

Industry: Financial Services

Topic(s): Transactions

Project Description:
Director in the COO Strategy and Business Transformation team 2017 – 2019 Interact with and advise senior management around the change agenda/strategy with solid understanding of processes and responsibilities. Managed global teams delivering against stringent regulatory commitments and the functional build-out working closely with Technology developers. Key achievements: • Led seven workstreams in the BREXIT response programme co-ordinating a global team of up to 30 people (incl. PMO) resulting in timely readiness of the extended Irish entity (including Chief Controls Office, Compliance, Governance, Service Management/Internal Sourcing, Audit, Legal) Director in the Compliance Transformation / Change Team 2014 – 2017 Key achievements: • Led the Compliance innovation agenda for ‘Insight and Analytics’ projects (focus on conduct risk and surveillance applying Agile project methodology) resulting in improved data mining capabilities and large increase of surveillance coverage models (products and geography) • Led the Compliance Risk Management Council (c. 40m budget, council chaired by Head of Compliance) with successful delivery against time/budget of large-scale projects impacting the whole Bank

Industry: Financial Services

Topic(s): Organizational Transformation

Project Description:
Promoted to Director - 2007 and Associate Partner - 2011 • Involved in the whole sales cycle from exploratory meetings, pricing, contract negotiations, development of delivery approach through to staffing. Worked in Financial Services, Retail, Oil & Gas, Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, Public Sector and Professional Services Key achievements: • Successfully sold and delivered projects around Finance transformation, business partnering, budgeting and forecasting (including scenario Modelling), Finance system reviews and implementation, Finance process re-engineering and optimisation (e.g. close, reporting, cash flow management, order to cash process), business intelligence, cost reduction, enterprise risk management, regulatory change (Sarbanes Oxley, Financial Services industry specific regulations such as MiFID & ICAAP) • Achieved more than 95% client satisfaction and as a result all projects led to extensions and/or repeat work

Industry: Professional Services

Topic(s): Organizational Transformation

Project Description:
Sold and delivered complex, strategy focused projects defining and implementing operating models, process improvements and large, execution focused programmes spinning off parts of the business and building up a new risk function. Examples include: Remediate surveillance gap for a global Investment Bank  Led the global assessment of the bank’s trade surveillance capabilities on a desk-by-desk basis (180+ desks) across all asset classes (equities, FICC, derivatives). Successfully submitted within the deadline of six weeks the assessment and remediation plan to the regulator (FED) which was positively received.  Set up, resourced and led the global trade surveillance remediation programme overseeing 5 change and up to 40 technology resources. Implemented standardised design and development tools.  In parallel designed and conducted global in-depth analysis of order/trading system flows which was key in supporting successful surveillance gap closure. Increase process capacity for an Aircraft Leasing company  Directly reporting into Senior Management Team and CEO managed the delivery of target operating model design, a financial capacity and scenario model, and targeted improvement initiatives for pipeline filtering (based on risk and success probability) and customer contract negotiations process. Design risk function of a UK Retail Bank (spin-off)  Managed two workstreams in the implementation programme of a new risk function and organised and manged the due diligence process with the acquiring bank. Based on the bank’s change process methodology conducted initial studies, formulated business cases for specific risk teams and developed their target operating model. Strengthened the Risk PMO processes and implemented clear progress metrices.

Industry: Financial Services

Topic(s): Organizational Transformation

Education

Bachelor's in Business Administration/Management

ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences

1998

Language Skills

Country Experience

United Kingdom India Germany France United States

Skills

Data Analysis

Data Analytics

Business

Digital Transformation,

Asset Management,

Value Creation,

Business Process Management,

Post Merger Integration,

Change & Implementation,

Transformation Management Office

Law, Regulation, and Compliance

Trade Compliance

Human Resources

Capability Development

Finance

Budgeting,

Cash Management,

Consolidation,

Corporate Finance,

Cost Management,

Derivatives,

Financial Analysis,

Financial Modeling,

Financial Planning,

Revenue Growth

Information Technology

IT PMO

Industry Experience

Principal Investors

Private Equity