Heather D'Souza

Director

Heather 10433

Summary

Heather has over 15 years of audit and finance leadership experience across the medical device, retail, and professional services industries. She has worked for large multinational companies driving process improvements across finance operations and has supported multiple acquisitions, divestures, and other strategic initiatives during her career.

Areas of Expertise

Change Management / Process Improvement

Having been through several reorganizations, mergers, and divestitures I’ve learned to embrace the suck. While it is never easy to make changes, if done right, the end result significantly outweighs the effort. My approach is to get back to the basics by understanding what the key business drivers, restrictions, and pain points are today so that we can design an effective go forward approach to achieve the desired outcomes tomorrow. Listening to people is key both in driving employee engagement and in getting the answer right, so I pride myself in being a trusted business partner and advisor during these difficult times.

Integration Work

I’ve had experiences on both the buy and sell-sides of several significant multinational acquisitions/divestitures. As part of these, I have led and supported integration projects across a variety of functions including tax, treasury, audit, inventory management, and financial close. This work included developing standard operating procedures, preparing for opening balance sheet audits, supporting system integrations, and centralizing work into global shared service functions. Collaborating with stakeholders on both sides of the deal often leads to the most optimal business results and I thrive working in this cross-functional capacity.

Auditing / Internal Controls

Audit has been at the core of my professional experience and has ranged from beginning my career in public accounting to being audited during my time in Corporate Finance. I’ve led both financial and operational internal audits reviewing business process across inventory management, sales, credit card services, property development, and compliance. This experience has taught me how to quickly identify both financial and operational risks to a company and how to mitigate those risks in an efficient and effective manner while ensuring accurate financial statements.

Team Leadership & Development

Throughout my career I’ve had the opportunity to lead teams as small as two local analysts to multinational teams over 60. In each role, developing team members has been a true point of joy for me. I love challenging someone and watching them grow in their role or, helping them to leverage their talents in new areas. I believe that a team that is diverse, valued, and engaged is the greatest asset a company can have.


Industry Experience

  • Medical Device
  • Retail
  • Professional Services

Strengths

  • Change Management
  • Collaboration
  • Team Leadership & Development
  • Problem Solver
  • Communication
  • Ethical

Experience

Finance Director

Medtronic

Assurance Manager

Target

Audit Manager

Boston Scientific

Senior Audit Associate

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Education

BBA, Accounting & Management

University of Iowa

Certification

CPA (Inactive)

Contact

Phone

Email

LinkedIn

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