Catherine Gatheru

Background

About Catherine Gatheru

I love turning information to insights, producing knowledge from data, knowledge that can then be used to increase a company’s bottom line, inform strategy and help businesses grow both profitably and sustainably. Growing up, I was always fascinated with the way businesses were ran, how they made profits and remained sustainable. Now, I leverage my financial knowledge to help businesses I am involved in make better informed decisions, create & add value while remaining profitable. My skills and competencies in finance spread across Financial Modelling & Analysis, Budgeting, Business Performance Analysis, Forecasting, Annual Operational Planning, Commercial Finance, Working Capital Management and Business Processes Improvement. Some of my notable achievements include; • Maintaining and creating financial planning models that were used to project long-term resource requirements and supported the Series C funding round which saw Lightrock invest $18.5 million in 4G Capital • Directly managed budgets worth over £ 100M across the Legal, Corporate Relations, Procurement, Sales and Marketing teams based in South Africa. Additionally, I coordinated P&L forecasts, analyzed performance and provided insights in monthly business reviews resulting in a 10% reduction on variable costs as a result of increased visibility. • Established new forecasting, tracking and management reporting system to improve availability and accuracy of financial data, triggering 15% increase in accuracy. • Working capital optimization, by offering early payment terms to 35 key vendors across 5 African countries through supplier financing program advertently standardizing their payment terms, reducing urgent payment requests by 70% and release of payments valued at £ 10M bolstering liquidity and vendor satisfaction. • I successfully migrated the Diageo South Africa Market Inter-company transactions onto SAP ERP and Business Warehouse (BW) which resulted in a 30% saving on time spent performing inter-company transactions thereby improving business productivity. • Spearheaded the analysis of inter-company debt and processes across 12 African countries resulting in improved operational efficiency and enhanced liquidity by release of funds valued at £ 15M. While I am not working, you will find me savouring the taste of a new recipe that I looked up online, dancing to salsa music, playing football and search games with my kids-simply put-enjoying life’s little pleasures that make life worth living.