Advisory Board
Guillaume de Pommereau
(former) CFO, Hitachi EuropeA global leader in Finance, Guillaume de Pommereau excels in driving business value at enterprise level and leading financial organizations across complex multinational environments.
In leadership roles with Hitachi Europe, Takeda Pharmaceuticals Europe, Newell, and Dell Computer, he has delivered significant value while developing strong business partnership and maintaining the highest standards of compliance.
Leading a team of 70 finance experts at Hitachi Europe, he focuses as much on the revenue side as on the cost side, with a view that Finance is at the heart of a company’s performance ability.
Guillaume started his career in audit in PwC in Paris 26 years ago. He worked in France, Germany and is now based in the UK. His experience covers the technology sector at Dell and KPNQwest, the consumer goods sector with Parker Pen, Waterman, Papermate, the health sector with Takeda Pharma and Alliance Healthcare and the industry sector with Hitachi.
Guillaume is a graduate from EM Lyon Business School and holds a Master in Econometrics from Paris University. In 2009, he graduated from TRIUM, a Global Executive MBA delivered by NYU Stern School of Business, HEC Paris and London School of Economics.
Markus Kobler
Global CFO, Allianz Global InvestorsMarkus Kobler is Global Chief Financial Officer for Allianz Global Investors and a member of its Global Executive Committee.
Markus joined Allianz Global Investors in 2013 from Bank Julius Baer & Co where he was Global Head of Onboarding and responsible for the transfer of clients and staff in the integration of Merrill Lynch International Wealth Management into Julius Baer.
Prior to this, Markus was COO Asia and Deputy CEO Bank Julius Baer, Singapore. Based in Singapore for more than six years, he was part of a team that set up Julius Baer’s operations in Asia, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and Jakarta. He was responsible for building the bank’s platform with two booking centres and oversaw the support functions including IT, Operations, Finance, Legal & Risk and HR.
Before moving to Asia, Markus helped to coordinate the integration of SBC Wealth Management into the Julius Baer Group in 2005 and was in charge of the Business Line
Management function of Julius Baer’s Asset Management division.
Before joining Julius Baer in 2003, Markus was a senior consultant at McKinsey in Zurich where he managed client merger initiatives and strategic redesign projects in the areas of performance and product management for a number of asset managers and private banks.
Markus holds a PHD in Economics from the University of Basel in Switzerland.
Paul Venables
Group Finance Director, Hays PlcA Chartered Accountant and also USA qualified, Paul started his career at Deloitte & Touche where he was a Senior manager in its USA practice. This was followed by a 13 year career at Exel plc where he held a number of senior finance and operational roles including Deputy Group Finance Director and was a member of the executive board of Exel plc and Chairman of their Acquisitions and Project Review Board. Paul was appointed Group Finance Director of Hays plc in 2006 and has helped transform the business into the preeminent global specialist recruitment business with operations in 33 countries.
Alasdair Peach
Finance Director, Reckitt Benckiser
Kate Curnow
Deputy CFO, Honda Motor Europe
Michael Clark
VP Finance & CFO, Coca-Cola European Partners
Michael Kreeft
CFO, BMW Group UK
William Benson
VP Head Finance Transformation, GSK
Rohitesh Dhawan
Director of Global Strategy, Eurasia Group
Chris Astle
VP Finance, Alder Pharmaceuticals, Inc.CEO and founder of Think Forwards, a financial and businesses consulting group on a quest to embed commercial finance excellence, creating value-add financial business partnering teams, and to help you understand what changes may be needed in your businesses to optimize growth and profitability. We bring real-life financial experience to deliver results. We look at what businesses do today and help them implement those changes they want to make to transform tomorrow — delivering positive financial impact.
Chris thrives in situations where he can talk with people about their business and work with them to find ways to drive their business forwards. He has extensive experience in leading projects to drive transformational change whilst ensuring profitable and sustainable growth.
Chris has experience in both large multi-national businesses and in start-ups. In his prior role as International CFO at Allergan, he led an international finance organisation of 170 people supporting a business with $3bn in sales and 4,500 employees delivering double-digit sales growth in over 100 countries. He has established finance functions and to raise funding for smaller early stage companies.
Resident CFO at the Finance Director Magazine, guest lecturer at the Henley School of Management, and judge at the British Accountant Awards.
Chris is a Chartered Accountant with ICAS, and holds a PhD and Masters degree in Chemistry.
Contact Chris at [email protected]. Find him online at linkedin.com/in/chris-astle/ and @astle_chris.
Martin Sanders
Chief Audit Executive, Honda Motor EuropeMartin Sanders is Chief Audit Executive for the European Region of Honda Motor Europe Ltd.
The role heads up the Corporate Audit function providing independent objective assurance of the adequacy of control and management of risk of the £5.2billion European Business
Joined Honda (UK) in 1994 and held senior positions of Head of Sales & Marketing for Honda (UK) Cars, General Manger Honda (UK) and Europe Power Products and for the past 3 years CFO/GM for Honda Motor Europe.
Prior to Honda, he worked for Volvo Cars (UK) as Managing Director of Volvo Finance and before that worked as a worldwide auditor for British Airways PLC.
A Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountant of England and Wales qualified with Deloitte in the UK. He graduated with a degree in Economics from the University College Cardiff.
Martin is a Trustee and Chairman of Governance of Wooden Spoon, which is the national rugby charity for children who are disadvantaged physically, mentally or socially.
He is a proud Welshman, born in Cardiff and is married with three sons.
Mark Weir
US Group Financial Controller, AlmacMark is the US Group Financial Controller for The Almac Group. Mark is Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and holds a Master’s degree from Dublin City University in IT & Accounting and a Bachelor’s Degree from Queens University, Belfast, in Economics. Originally from Northern Ireland Mark moved to the USA in 2012 to take up his current position with The Almac Group. Prior to joining The Almac Group Mark trained as a Chartered Accountant with PWC and worked in a number of international organizations, during his time with one he led the international expansion of a family owned firm from Northern Ireland in establishing their first foreign facility in Kansas.
