Gavin is available for hire
Hire GavinGavin Doyle
Verified Expert in Finance
Finance Expert
Location
Dublin, Ireland
Toptal Member Since
July 27, 2022
Gavin is a CPA and chartered accountant with over 20 years of experience in finance. Over his career with HBO and PwC, Gavin has developed expertise in accounting, financial modeling, and implementing financial processes to maximize business operations. As a core management team member that launched HBO Max, he played an integral role in expanding its subscriber base and creating policies and processes that maximized HBO's profits. Gavin has joined Toptal to work on challenging projects.
Career Highlights
SVP Finance, Direct to Consumer
WarnerMedia
SVP Finance
HBO
Certification Highlights
Diploma in Corporate Finance
Chartered Accountants Ireland
Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
Massachusetts Board of Public Accountancy
Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA)
Chartered Accountants Ireland
Case Studies
Expertise
Work Experience
Interim VP of FP&A
2022 - 2023
Syndigo - Finance
- Served as the interim head of FP&A for a PE-backed $200 million global SaaS business. Partnered with the interim CFO to run the finance function after the CFO and VP of FP&A left. Managed a remote team across multiple time zones (US, India, and UK).
- Delivered the monthly pro forma and GAAP reporting vs. budget and prior year to the senior management team and PE owner.
- Delivered weekly and monthly operational reporting to the senior management team and PE owner, which included cash flow, ACV and revenue product analysis, KPI dashboards (GRR, NRR, Churn, SAC, and LTV), quota performance, and pipeline analysis.
- Improved finance organization performance by eliminating and streamlining the monthly ACV analysis process, cutting deliverable time by five days, and redesigning FP&A and controller organizations to better support the business.
- Prepared quarterly public debt reporting filing, which included GAAP financial statements, MD&A, and covenant compliance.
- Built out first truly bottoms up by department-level budget for the business.
- Oversaw synergies and the addback program, which included identifying new synergies and addbacks to maximize pro forma P&L performance and ensuring existing ones were delivered within the agreed timeframe.
- Managed the cross-organization RIF program that took $6 million of recurring overhead out of the business.
- Successfully partnered with the tech organization to continuously drive down hosting costs and with the R&D organization to streamline the cap vs. exp accounting allocation process.
- Oversaw the sale commission process, which included monthly calculation and payment processing, ensuring compliance with approved rep growth and retention plans. Partnered with revenue ops team to streamline and simplify plans.
Focus areas: Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)
SVP Finance, Direct to Consumer
2019 - 2021
WarnerMedia
- Ran all FP&A, accounting, and billing operations. During my tenure, HBO Max added 10 million new retail subscribers.
- Operationalized the HBO Max SVOD financial model, which included building detailed plans to grow by five million retail subscribers, hire 400 people, and invest $500 million in product and marketing.
- Built all significant accounting policies, including GAAP reporting, FP&A, decision support systems, and billing operations for the DTC business from scratch.
- Established KPIs for the business, which included conversion, churn, acquisition costs, and lifetime value.
- Developed a cohort-level forecasting model that allowed detailed multiyear scenario planning around subscriber growth and marketing ROI.
- Partnered with the head of growth to reduce involuntary churn by 30% by implementing more sophisticated billing retry logic.
- Created a detailed long-range financial plan for HBO Max's $100 million advertising-supported tier, including accounting for the cannibalization risk.
- Developed a 10-year detailed three-statement financial model and the NPV analysis for HBO Max.
- Drove $30 million in cost savings by establishing efficiency targets for each operating area.
- Crafted the SEC external disclosures and wrote the Q&A script for quarterly earnings calls.
Focus areas: Financial Modeling, Accounting, Budgeting, eCommerce, CFO, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Internal Control, Investor Relations, Board Decks, US GAAP, IFRS Financial Reporting, Financial Consolidation, Billing & Collections, Billing Systems, DCF Valuation, Team Building, Financial Controls & Processes, Financial Controlling, Revenue & Expense Projections, Interim CFO, Three-statement Modeling, Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Chartered Accountant (CA)
SVP Finance
2017 - 2019
HBO
- Ran the FP&A, accounting, and subscriber operations for HBO's $5.5 billion core wholesale business.
- Developed a detailed financial plan for the wholesale business, used to build the business case to launch the HBO Max service.
- Supported over $10 billion in affiliate distribution deal negotiations, which included evaluating the impact of proposals on financial targets, structuring the accounting, and providing input on operational provisions.
- Created a monthly subscriber update process for HBO's C-level executives, a significant cultural shift that improved collaboration between operating groups.
- Recovered an additional $10 million of annual revenue through targeted auditing of affiliates.
- Built a financial model to measure the ROI on promotional offers ranging from $5 million to $50 million to ensure they were revenue- and subscriber-accretive.
- Created a finance transformation initiative that outsourced a 50-person finance organization to a lower-cost on-shore and off-shore shared services environment.
- Drove $40 million in marketing synergies through contract renegotiations and vendor consolidation.
- Presented and developed an introductory revenue presentation to the entire sales department to help shift the department to a more revenue-focused mindset.
- Developed and presented a promotional campaign ROI training program for the sales personnel to ensure the campaigns' revenue maximization.
Focus areas: Finance Transformation, SOX Compliance, Internal Control, Internal Audit Function, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Financial Modeling, Accounting, Budgeting, Billing & Collections, Change Management, US GAAP, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Negotiation
Vice President, Financial Operations & Reporting
2008 - 2017
HBO
- Directed budgeting, forecasting, and accounting for the $800 million annual P&L expense, including consumer marketing, affiliate sales, talent relations, corporate communications, global licensing, and retail.
- Rolled out the SOX at all of the HBO international ventures.
- Led multiple fraud investigations that resulted in prosecutions.
- Managed the relationship with the internal auditing department and oversaw 20 operational and financial audits performed annually at HBO.
- Conducted business process reviews in the areas of procurement, marketing, talent relations, and payroll. Identified over $3 million in recurring annual cost savings and numerous operational and internal control improvements.
- Set up a new budget and tracking system to manage the $500 million annual spend, enabling departments to monitor and optimize their spend.
- Grew global licensing and retail revenues from $1 million to $30 million.
- Implemented a contract compliance program for the global licensing and retail business that minimized revenue leakage and protected the misuse of intellectual property.
Focus areas: Accounting, Forecasting, Process Design, Chart of Accounts, Change Management, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Budgeting, Financial Modeling
Director, Financial Operations & Reporting
2003 - 2008
HBO
- Led all budgeting, forecasting, and accounting for the $1.5 billion annual P&L expense, including acquired theatrical programming, sales, marketing, technology, and tax.
- Designed and implemented HBO's SOX compliance program, which was highlighted as a Best in Class program to the Time Warner board.
- Created HBO's first internal compliance department and expanded its initial remit beyond SOX compliance to include managing the Time Warner internal audit relationship, process improvement, and fraud investigation.
- Saved HBO hundreds of thousands of annual fees by expanding the tax department's value add beyond sales and using tax compliance to include tax planning for HBO's original productions and international ventures.
- Led the development of a new accounting policy for acquired theatrical programming, including obtaining a buy-in from Time Warner and the external auditors.
Focus areas: Accounting, SOX Compliance, Internal Control, Internal Control Evaluation, Internal Audit Function, Taxation, Tax Planning, Financial System Implementation
Audit Manager
1998 - 2003
PwC
- Led audit engagements for large public companies such as Pearson, Verizon, and Thomson.
- Provided assurance services for a range of new software and telecommunication startups.
- Provided advisory services to Xerox during the SEC investigation.
Focus areas: SEC Filing, Startups, Audits, US GAAP, IFRS Financial Reporting, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Big 4 Accounting
Education
1994 - 1995
Master's Degree in Accounting
University College Dublin - Dublin, Ireland
1991 - 1994
Bachelor's Degree in Commerce
University College Dublin - Dublin, Ireland
Certifications
OCTOBER 2014 - PRESENT
Diploma in International Financial Reporting (IFRS)
Chartered Accountants Ireland
OCTOBER 2014 - PRESENT
Diploma in Corporate Finance
Chartered Accountants Ireland
MAY 2003 - PRESENT
Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
Massachusetts Board of Public Accountancy
FEBRUARY 1999 - PRESENT
Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA)
Chartered Accountants Ireland
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