Bruce I. Backhouse

My career started in 1979 as a trainee chartered accountant with Touche Ross & Co. in London before I moved in 1988 to Stuttgart to work for Suedmilch. Prior to this I had worked for their sole agent in the UK, Bailey Milk Products Ltd., and its joint owner T. D. Bailey Dairy Products Ltd. Here I gained experience in accountancy, logistics, purchasing and sales.

In 1990 I studied for a Euro-MBA in Spain, France and Scotland before joining a company that was taken over in 1995 by the Swedish paper-maker SCA AB. I was employed in the management accounting department in Mannheim, Liège and Raubling both at the local and HQ level.

In 2000 I joined Medi-Globe Corporation in Achenmuehle (Bavaria) as CFO. As Chief Financial Officer I was responsible with a team of 4 for the Controlling,  Accounting, Treasury and Financial Reporting activities of the Group both for local and US-GAAP.  In cooperation with my colleagues in Production and Sales I selected and introduced a new Economic Resource Planning software that enabled several sites to prepare their accounts in house.  I was also involved in the due-diligence process of 3 of the subsidiaries that were acquired during 2001.  Furthermore I was part of the team that prepared the Business Plan and company valuation required by both new investors.  Finally I was responsible for the contact with the company’s banks.

Due to differences of opinion with the CEO as to how best stem the losses the Group was suffering, I left in 2002 to join Kimberly-Clark’s SSC in Brighton. As Team Leader in the Accounting to Reporting (ATR) work-stream I was responsible for month-end, quarter-end and year-end closings (US and local GAAP) for the entities in Germany, Switzerland and Austria along with the disciplinary and functional supervision of a Financial Reporting Specialist and Accountant per country.  The major challenges were: migration to SAP R/3, re-distribution of financial functions (between the Shared Service Centre in Brighton and the local organisations) and the reorganization of business practices following the introduction of a Principal/Commisionaire legal structure.

For family reasons Kimberly-Clark offered me the role as Mill Finance Manager in Mainz where as management accountants my team of 3 and I were responsible the month-end closing, variance analysis, product costing issues, the annual budget and all internal control issues (including SOX) affecting the production site Mainz as well as providing the Mill Manager with financial analyses and support.  This involved close liaison with Production, Purchasing and Head Office. With the sale of the site in 2006 to Wepa, a Germany parent company, the tasks remained largely unchanged.

However, when given the option of moving close to Dortmund as head of controlling I decided to move back to the family in Albstadt where I began in 2008 to work as an interim manager. I had the good fortune of finding The AuditFactory in Internet and convinced of the business plan I started to work between assignments with Elmar Schwager to see if I could generate business opportunities with the contacts I had gained up until then.

I believe we will be very successful and I look forward to a long and fruitful association with Elmar and his company.

Industries: Paper, Nutrition

Processes: Financial Audits, Operational Audits, SoX, Controlling

Contact:

The AuditFactory
Bruce I. Backhouse
Buchstrasse 28
74321 Bietigheim-Bissingen

Tel.: 07142 7748 331
Fax: 07142 7748 359
Mail: Bruce.I.Backhouse(at)AuditFactory.de