KAREN MARIE BULOS
Finance and Accounting Motivating Leader
Caloocan City,00
Summary
Dynamic leader in finance and accounting with extensive experience in Shared Services and BPO Centers. Skilled in managing diverse teams of over 40 finance and accounting professionals to consistently meet SLAs and drive process improvements. Recognized for expertise in business process migrations that yield significant cost savings through LEAN methodologies at organizations such as IWG, PLC, Chevron Corp., and Johnson & Johnson. Proven track record of spearheading documentation for Robotics Projects at IBM and facilitating successful SAP migrations at DIGITEL Inc., including comprehensive FiCo reconciliation for Chevron Holdings, Inc. Committed to fostering strong interdepartmental relationships and driving team development through customer-centric leadership, effective communication, and a focus on achieving exceptional results
Overview
26
26
years of professional experience
1
1
Certificate
Work History
Finance Manager
Ultimate Energy Systems
07.2022 - Current
- Developed and implemented financial strategies to optimize revenue and collection goals. Annual 130% increase in collections or 148M in 2023.
- Analyzed financial data to identify trends and inform strategic decisions.
- Mentored finance team, fostering professional development and improving performance outcomes.
- Collaborated with cross-functional teams to align financial planning with operational initiatives.
- Managed audits, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards and internal controls.
Finance and Operations
Clearmoon28 Construction and Supply
01.2021 - 06.2022
- Worked well in a remote team setting, providing support and guidance.
- Managed time efficiently during set up of accounting and operations achieving milestones during the height of the pandemic. 100% achievement in compliance to government requirements and taxes.
- Assisted with day-to-day operations, working efficiently and productively with all team members.
Accounting Finance Team Manager
IWG PLC, Global Service Centre
12.2016 - 07.2020
- Provide full support to stakeholders, including different Accounting Towers, Group HQ Finance and GSC Financial Reporting Team, ensuring Monthly Performance Reports are timely and accurately provided.
- Achieve 100% customer account receivable reconciliation for Latin America.
- Implement the new customer service ticketing system and successfully started standards SLA reporting to management reports.
- Establish regular stand-ups within Cash Applications Team that reduced backlogs and improved customer satisfaction.
- Led cross-functional teams to enhance operational efficiency and service delivery.
- Facilitated conflict resolution and fostered a collaborative environment among diverse teams.
Second Line Operations Manager
IBM, Corporation
03.2015 - 12.2016
- Highlights and improves all reporting requirements to Ernst and Young and KPMG.
- Manage the development of policies and procedures for EMEA.
- Achieve coordination and assessment with management to monitor metrics and assess performance of Team.
- Accomplished documentation and testing of Deal creation, Cost changes and Promotion Maintenance automation.
- Partnered with IBM Robotics team to automate Retail Deal Management processing.
- Led 40+ people with the following teams: Retail Deal Management, Customer Service and Order Entry/ Contract Forms and Master Data Maintenance.
- Ensure succession planning, promoting IBM culture to explore new skills.
- Spearhead the first ISO27001 Certification for client Crossmark.
- Statutory and Tax Operations Lead Role (Toshiba)
- Operations Lead Role (Crossmark)
Team Lead, Financial Accounting
Johnson and Johnson International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
05.2012 - 12.2013
- Standardize and AP Month End Closing tasks across Asia and prevented all delays of closing activities (60% impact on FTE savings).
- Implement major changes in process timelines for major divisions of JNJ (Vistakon and Pharma).
- Improved impact on duplicate payments, customer master maintenance and payments verification.
- Facilitate Process Design Workshop and Update Change Impact Assessment for business models handling Fixed Assets, covering the MD&D (Medical Devices and Diagnostics), Pharmaceutical and Consumer Divisions.
- Devise all process blueprints for Accounts Payable that enabled a flow to work structure hence, a strong back up system.
- Invoice to Pay and Fixed Assets Leader and Pioneer.
R2R (Record-to-Report) Accountant
Johnson and Johnson International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
10.2009 - 05.2012
- Improved company’s R2R 50% decrease in the reporting time for 2000++ accounts by implementing a compliant BSAR Completion Dashboard.
- Successful team governance on Access handling, Training deployment and implementation that led the company’s first CIA’s adequate rating.
- Perform timely month-end and reporting functions for Reporting Companies for Vision Care Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines, Australia and New Zealand Entities.
- Review company accounts and aligned to J&J ICH (Internal Control Handbook). This led to initiate changes on calculation for reserves such as SLOB (Slow Moving and Obsolete), Excess, and Inventory Revaluation.
- Led the first Account Risk Assessment.
(GFSP) Transition Project Accountant
Chevron Holdings, Inc. – Manila Shared Services Center
07.2004 - 09.2009
- Support Manila Shared Services Center R2R team in transition processes for areas in Quarterly Tax Reporting, Intercompany, Balance Sheet Reconciliation and Aviation Revenue Calculation and dealt with any issues of complexity which aide decision-making and creative solutions for Business Teams.
- Determine HQ cross-charges for billing and analyze the driver for any increase/decrease; provide recommendations to appropriate levels of the business.
- Develop OE strategy and review documentation of transitioned processes aligned to ISO2000 standards.
- Main POC for SAP migration in FiCo including proper conciliation of Profit and Cost centers. Responsibility includes Gatekeeping batch-upload entries for all Asia Pacific entities.
- Head coordinator for Chevron Hong Kong on revaluation and accounts reconciliation for month end.
- Define and implement continuous improvement strategy for Chevron Hong Kong.
- Onshore Transition Engagements (Wanchai, Hong Kong)
- Manila Office GSSC (RCBC Plaza)
Accounts Receivable Analyst
Digital Telecommunications Phils. Inc.
07.1999 - 06.2004
- OTC Main team to migrate in SAP R/3 ( FI and CO modules - Ver 4.6B, 4.6C ) from Legacy System.
- Prepare monthly and annual revenue consolidation and analysis (SLA, Key Performance Indicators, Issue Logs, and uploads final data to JG Summit Holdings (EXECOM).
- Report billing information on revenues performance evaluation.
- Implemented the data transfer to SAP from Legacy system reconciling all customer accounts.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Accountancy
06-1998
- Quezon City Scholarship - Academic Scholar
- Councilor Dante Liban II Scholarship
- Dean’s List Honoree all semesters
Skills
- Finance & Accounting (RTR, Q2C, P2P)
- Project Management
- Excellent communication
- Proficient in SAP (Financials and Controlling modules), Oracle and AS400
- Customer Satisfaction
- Financial systems such as JD Edwards, Business Intelligence and other Financial Reporting Tools
Certification
- Civil Professional Certification - Top 5 No. 96-128151 Quezon City, Philippines
- Cert Prep: PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) MAR 2021
- Critical Thinking - Project Management Institute (PMI)
- Management Training, Regus Global Service Centre
- The 7Habits for Managers Workshop, FranklinCovey
- Project Management Essentials, FranklinCovey
- Competency Training for Finance Leaders, J&J
- MS Advance Excel 2007, Mapua
- Business Process Management Skills Workshop, Ancilla
Accomplishments
- Collaborated with team of FTE in the development of BSAR Completion Dashboard which reduced the completion by 50%.
- Documented various and incompatible systems that require synchronization in which led to robotic automation for system requests .
Timeline
Finance Manager - Ultimate Energy Systems
07.2022 - Current
Finance and Operations - Clearmoon28 Construction and Supply
01.2021 - 06.2022
Accounting Finance Team Manager - IWG PLC, Global Service Centre
12.2016 - 07.2020
Second Line Operations Manager - IBM, Corporation
03.2015 - 12.2016
Team Lead, Financial Accounting - Johnson and Johnson International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
05.2012 - 12.2013
R2R (Record-to-Report) Accountant - Johnson and Johnson International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
10.2009 - 05.2012
(GFSP) Transition Project Accountant - Chevron Holdings, Inc. – Manila Shared Services Center
07.2004 - 09.2009
Accounts Receivable Analyst - Digital Telecommunications Phils. Inc.
07.1999 - 06.2004
Philippine School of Business Administration - Bachelor of Science, Accountancy
LINKS
- Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-marie-ropelos-bulos-83945385/
- Glassdoor https://www.glassdoor.com/member/home/index.htm