JENITA KURLAWALA
Dubai
Summary
Results-driven professional with extensive expertise in strategic planning, credit administration, risk control and management, and process automation. Demonstrates proficiency in credit policy development, debt recovery strategies, financial forecasting, and portfolio management. Skilled in leveraging advanced systems such as SAP ERP, Salesforce, Oracle R12, and VBA coding to optimise operations and enhance efficiency. Adept at leading teams with strong leadership acumen while driving data-driven decision-making to mitigate business risks and improve collection processes. Committed to delivering effective solutions that align with organisational goals and foster sustainable growth.
Overview
18
18
years of professional experience
2007
2007
years of post-secondary education
Work history
Senior Credit Controller - Commodities - Middle East
Bureau Veritas LLC
Dubai
2018.08 - 2026.02
- Promoted from Credit Controller to Senior Credit controller in Jan 2023
- Analyzing the financial statements and credit history to understand better how much risk could be involved in extending credit to customers.
- Evaluating the creditworthiness of potential customers. Creating credit scoring models for risk assessments made by self-employed professional/nonprofessional/ salaried segments after duly understanding business prospects and their needs.
- Looking after the repayment capacity, creditworthiness, and business profile of the customer through financial and business analysis. Monitoring loan payments and bad debts. Reviewing and updating the company’s credit policy.
- Shouldering the entire responsibility of planning and developing the collection recovery strategies to resolve customer issues and delinquent cases. Supporting credit limits by reviewing the financial statements
- Carrying out field visits to Customers if required to ensure mitigation of provisions with respective Business line Managers.
- Planning and establishing credit limits for new accounts based on credit reports, credit references, credit insurance, and financial statements. Accumulating the overall critical data to evaluate annual bad debts.
- Managing and collecting debts of company debtors towards a Portfolio of EUR 15M monthly and 253M annually and across the globe, mainly focusing on Europe GCC and Asian Countries
- Successfully recovered payments from 250+ to 360+ days old debts from Top oil companies like Shell, Total, Exxon, LITASCO, BPGLENCORE and ADNOC AUH & KSA
- Initiating Monthly and weekly meetings to flag risk customers and discuss potential solution to retain the customer.
- Dexterously Supervising accounts receivable activities in terms of billing, receipts posting, invoice allocation and processing Debit and Credit Memos for statement adjustments.
- Involved in Forecast and Budgeting on Sales front.
- Circulating month end AR dashboarding and month end closing AR reports, Bad debt Report, DSO report, Estimated Credit Loss
- Responsible for Internal and External financial audits
- Checking for Sanctioned companies and vessels on OFAC portal - Office of Foreign Assets Control
- Order Releasing and Blocking approvals.
- Managing the broad scope of internal accounting processes encompassing the daily management of billing, collections, reconciliation, general ledger and month-end-closing
- Administering accounting systems and preparing financial information for Customers
- Delivering Balance confirmation and SOA to the Customers
- Handling Cash, PDCs’, Bank Guarantees and vendor account setup
- Steering a small Team of 3 members
- Created Macros to auto-send statements to the UAE and KSA Customers
Credit Controller - Accounts Receivable
Promar LLC
Dubai
2018.03 - 2018.07
- Reviewed customer accounts to determine their creditworthiness and helped clients improve their scores.
- Monitored accounts for delinquencies or other issues that may require additional attention from other team members.
- Managed a broad scope of accounting internal processes encompassing the daily management of, billing, collections, reconciliation, general ledger and month-end-closing
- Phone call and bank verification for onboarding customers
- Running credit checks with FCIB and duns and Bradstreet
- Applying for credit limits, reviewing and managing portfolio on Euler Hermes platform
- Steered a small Team of 3 members
- Oversaw accounting systems and prepare financial information for Customers
- Carried out the account reconciliations and reconciled 15 accounts in 1st month and 10 accounts in 2nd month and recovered 2016/2017 old pending receivables
- Successfully conducted field visits to Customers to ensure mitigation of provisions and examined accounting records and prepare customer financial statements
- Posted receipts, Cash, Cheques and Bank transfer; provided Balance confirmation and SOA to the Customers
- Processed Debit and Credit Memos for statement adjustment.
- Assured credit profiles of all customers are complete in all aspects; credit agreements are signed, filed and credit terms are correctly reflected in the system
- Developed Macros to Auto send statements to the customer
- Key Deliverables
Credit Controller - Accounts Receivable
Hitli Emirates Middle East LLC
Dubai
2017.04 - 2018.03
- Played a significant role in managing broad scope of internal accounting processes encompassing the daily management of billing, collections, reconciliation, general ledger and month-end-closing
- Looked after accounting systems and prepared financial information for Customers
- Developed Letter of Credit Documents to submit to bank for payments
- Held responsible for a client ledger of around 130 Upper Market and Key customers ranging from AED 50M-60M annually
- Conducted field visits to Customers to ensure the mitigation of provisions
- Generated and developed age analysis, Bad debt forecast, TS/ ASM performance and other reports
- Reviewed AR ageing to ensure doubtful receivables are flagged on Time and demand letter for payments is issued
- Assured credit profiles of all customers are complete in all aspects; credit agreements are signed, filed and credit terms are correctly reflected in the system
- Held accountable for proposing various payment options like LC, COD, PDC etc., mainly to reduce provision, thereby providing the best payment option for the key customers
- Developed Macros to Auto send statements to the customer
- Started and implemented Lean Management in Billing Team to reduce manual efforts in searching documents and printing them by 25%
- Key Deliverables
Credit Analyst and Controller - Accounts Receivables
Al Ghurair Foods LLC
Dubai
2013.10 - 2017.03
- Augmented revenue from AED 7 million (2015) to AED 15 million (2016) by determining credit limits for existing / new clients
- Pioneered changes in credit policies - Ensured policies and procedures accorded with the department’s standards
- Instated and setup credit insurance department with credit manager
- Successfully managed end-to-end Credit insurance policy and claims and monitored a portfolio of AED 1 billion.
- Managed debt collection on the assigned portfolio of accounts under 90 + Buckets
- Pioneered and developed new reports which are essential for management
Assistant Manager - Credit Operations
Crisil Ltd (A Standard & Poor’s Company)
2007.10 - 2013.01
- Supported Credit and Financial Analysts in Credit rating operations. Review, evaluate, approve, and reject mortgage credit applications in compliance with FICO score Sheet, rules and regulations, Evaluation model and Ratios
- Collaborated with a worldwide group of sale support analysts and product managers to resolve Client Support Queries of ABSXchange Investor/ Subscribers (CSQ)
- Managed a team of 15 subordinates in Securitization, EMEA, ABS/RMBS/CMBS Structured Finance, Surveillance
- Steered Conference Calls and participated in Global conference calls for updates on Client Queries
Education
Bachelors - Accounts and Finance
University of Mumbai
Skills
- Strategic Planning
- Credit Administration
- Risk Control & Management
- Disbursement Control
- Credit Policy & Procedures
- Credit Sourcing
- Credit Appraisal
- Recovery & Collection
- Accounts Specialists
- Risk Analysis
- Credit Scorecard
- Lean Management and Automation
- Credit Insurance
- Team Management
- Leadership Acumen
- Sorby LIMS - Laboratory Information management System
- OMS - Order Management System
- SAP / ERP (P11 and P12)
- Salesforce and JD Edward’s
- Oracle R12 (Accounting, Invoicing, Billing)
- VBA (Beginners Level) / Macros / Microsoft Office - VBA Coding for macros and excel automations
- Informatica Data Transformation v 901
- Well-versed with the MS-Office, MS Excel, PowerPoint
- Oracle Discoverer
- Credit risk analysis
- Debt recovery strategies
- Financial statement evaluation
- Customer credit assessments
- Portfolio management
- Credit policy development
- Business risk mitigation
- Data-driven decision making
- Collection process optimisation
- Financial forecasting
- Accounts receivable management
- Team leadership
- Analytical problem solving
- Process automation
- Credit scoring system usage
- Effective query resolution
- Proactive approach to debts
- Strong leadership capabilities
- Billing systems operation
Accomplishments
- Initiated and implemented sending invoices to customer via VBA macros with 45% productivity improvement and efficiency - 2022
- Pioneered and executed to send SOA to Multiple Customers via Mail with VBA Macros and Auto generation of SOA, which auto-generates and auto saves with Naming Convention In a specific folder, thereby saving 32% of Time in sending SOA, leading to productivity improvement in Jan 2019 till date
- Commenced and implemented Lean Management in Billing Team to reduce manual efforts in searching documents and printing them by 25% in 2017
- Established and implemented based level credit scoring module as a pilot project to implement credit analysis and rating in FMCG Sector in Dubai in 2014-2015
- Commenced, generated, developed, and implemented Time Savings of 2500 hours in 2012, saving 1.5 FTE with a 7.89% efficiency gain in 2012
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
Received Letter of Appreciation and Special incentive for outstanding performance in 2023 for exceptional AR Turnaround and Collection 2020 (Letter can be furnished on request), Best team award for Highest Cash contribution on Middle east level in 2021, Best team award for consistent performance on Middle east level in 2021, Received Letter of Appreciation and Special incentive for outstanding performance in 2020 (Letter can be furnished on request), Accredited with the quarterly Performance Award - Q1 2008 (Data Associate) and quarterly Performance Award - Q2 2008 (Data Associate), Standard and Poor’s ACE (Acknowledging and Celebrating Excellence) Award for “Team Spirit” in 2009 (Senior Data Associate), Awarded with quarterly Performance Award - Q3 2009 (Senior Data Associate), Got special Recognition Award - Q2 2010 (Senior Data Associate), Received quarterly Performance Award - Q1 2012 (Assistant Manager)
WORKSHOPS
- Informatica Data Transformation v 9.0.1 (Data Integration Tool)
- 5 days of Training on Green Belt, Six Sigma and Lean implementation
- 8 days of structured finance training on ABS, RMBS, CMBS, ABCP and CDO asset class
- Workshop on Business Communication, High-Impact Presentation , Workshop on Developing Leadership Skills
- Workshop on Building Relationships and Team bonding