BEAU PAAKOW SACKEY B.COM, MBA, PMP
RESULTS, EXPERIENCE, LEADERSHIP Email:- Mobile: -
Highly effective and multifaceted global business executive with over 18 years of strategic initiatives, program/project management and management consulting experience across various industries including: banking/finance, telecommunications, manufacturing and retail with deep capabilities in each industry. Successfully led projects, programs and turnarounds of Fortune 500 and other leading companies globally. Excellent communicator and negotiator, who consistently engages and inspires teams to perform and deliver outstanding results.
MANAGEMENT EXPERTISE
Strategic Planning
Global Operations
Key Partnership Development
Profit and Loss (PnL) Management
Product Marketing & Management
Sales Effectiveness
Board / Directorships
Talent and People Management
Operations Management
DIGITAL, FINANCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPERTISE
Capital Markets
Regulatory & Compliance Projects
Social Media / Digital Technologies
Retail Banking
Digital & Transformation Initiatives
Payments & FinTech
Artificial Intelligence
Public Financial Management
Data Migration
CORE COMPETENCIES
Aligning Stakeholders to a Vision
Launching a Program Management Office
Leading Strategic Transformations
Driving Growth Strategies
Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting
Trusted Advisor to Boards and C-Suite
Mentoring, Coaching & Leading
Managing Contracts, Vendors & 3rd Parties
Managing Key Business Relationships
Delivering Shareholder Value
Delivering Large Programs & Turnarounds
Delivering Executive/Performance Scorecards
TECHNICAL SKILLS
Google Workspace
SAP
Microsoft Office
JIRA / Confluence
SDLC / PMLC / Waterfall
Agile / Scrum / Iterative / Rapid
Slack
Data Science & Artificial Intelligence
Business Intelligence / Visualization
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Plendify Incorporated (Canadian Entity) and Plendify Company (Ghana) Limited “Plendify”
Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board May, 2019 – November, 2024
Primary driving force behind the setting up and scaling up of Plendify into a viable going concern. Provided leadership for overall company in both Toronto, Canada and Accra Ghana offices. Led the strategic and operational direction of the business with full responsibility of translating strategy into tangible financial results; including long-term planning; product development; operational excellence, marketing and sales. Oversaw 4 direct reporting lines; including COO, CTO, CMO and CFO.
Brief:
Plendify.com – is a full end-to-end wholesale electronic commerce (e-commerce) B2B marketplace that enables businesses and to buy high quality food and beverage products at fair prices from verified and trusted suppliers. Their hallmarks were reliability, quality and consistency at fair prices. All products purchased on the marketplace were delivered straight to our business clients across Accra, Ghana.
Key Achievements:
Led the definition of the company culture and core values from documentation into an active and living going concern.
Effectively scaled the company from a team of 1 to a diverse team of 20+ employees across different functions from finance, marketing, sales, operations, customer service and software engineering in 2 countries (i.e. Ghana and Canada).
Grew revenues from $0 to $500,000.00 by end of 2022 and on track to achieve between $3.5 million and $4.0 million in sales in 2024.
Recruited and composed a stellar Board of Directors; comprising investors/shareholders and the management team
Led the product development and software engineering teams to build a robust e-commerce platform from conceptualization to reality. In parallel also led the enablement of operations, sales and marketing teams to take the e-commerce platform to market.
Biltstone Consulting Canada (Biltstone)
Managing Partner May, 2017 – April, 2019
Senior executive responsible for providing Tier 1 Global Financial Institutions with consulting services in the areas of digital banking, strategy, technology and program/project management.
Selected Client Experiences:
Royal Bank of Canada (Largest Bank by Revenue - Canada)Toronto, Canada
Client Partner where I assisted the Capital Markets Technology group at RBC Capital Markets, by supervising the implementation of projects of various sizes, complexities and budgets utilizing technologies to create efficiencies for the traders and capital markets front office staff.
Secured CAD$7M revenue contract over the span of 2 years from RBC Capital Markets Technology group.
Led client initiatives leading to significant growth of Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) trading business at RBC Capital Markets across Europe and North America.
Other client initiatives include:
Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB) – Implementing FRTB Standardized Approach (SA) and Internal Model Approach (IMA).
CAD ETF - Expanding the Canadian Exchange Traded Funds business for RBC Capital Markets by migrating Canadian ETF trading business into Sophis platform for risk management purposes.
UK ETF – Expanding the UK Exchange Traded Funds business for RBC Capital Markets by migrating UK ETF trading business into Sophis platform for risk management purposes.
Credit Default Swap Migration into Sophis platform.
The Capital Markets Company Limited (Capco)
Manager, Technology Practice May, 2012 – Feb, 2017
Provided Tier 1 Global Financial Institutions with consulting services in the areas of digital, strategy, technology and program/project management.
Selected Client Experiences:
TD Canada Trust (Largest Bank by Assets – Canada)Toronto, Canada
Project Manager for New Generation Payments Platform (NGPP) project to modernize the payment processing for Canadian Electronic Funds Transfer onto a vendor (FIS/Clear2Pay) supported product. In addition, to the above, was focused on supporting the migration of Interac (Canadian payments platform) e-transfer onto a new enterprise platform as part of delivering incremental capabilities mandated by Interac for Enhanced User Functionality (EUF) and in the process, provided an agile and flexible infrastructure to enable market competitiveness in the disruptive payments space.
Developed an Integrated Program Plan using best practices covering different sub-projects on the program and ascertaining critical path milestones and dependencies.
Developed Key Performance Indicators to be used for senior management status reporting.
TD Canada Trust (Largest Bank by Assets - Canada)Toronto, Canada
Program Manager for a CAD $180 million Enterprise (Bank wide) Credit Risk Reporting Solution implementation in accordance with global banking regulation from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS 239). Stood up, led and run a program management office (PMO) to execute and deliver on the mandatory requirements of the regulation working in tandem with Canadian regulators, TD Bank’s Risk Committee of the Board and a team of 250+ resources to deliver program on time under significant budgetary, resource and bank legacy constraints.
Provided senior management reports and presented project progress, key risks and critical decisions to keep project on track against milestones to minimize the impact on project schedule, cost and resources.
Managed changes to the project scope, quality and schedule against deliverables. Communicated approved changes and performed corrective actions to resolve defects to ensure solution alignment per business expectations.
Established strong working relationships and facilitated discussions between internal and external stakeholders to ensure information flow, transparency, collaboration and effective execution of solution aligned to business needs.
HSBC (2nd Largest Bank by Assets - Globally) Buffalo, USA/London, UK/Paris, FR
Project Manager/Lead Consultant for the USD $5 million implementation of a digital channel to enable HSBC call center agents to chat with bank customers and prospects online via a 3rd party vendor Live Chat solution in order to grow revenues (by converting hot leads into sales) and reduce costs (by reducing the number of FTE’s and call volumes into the call center). Realized benefits of USD $500,000 in year 1.
Managed the delivery of the project in fast-paced environments with a team of 15 people using Agile and Waterfall methodologies. Created project plans, prioritized, and coordinated activities to motivate and build high-performing teams to achieve deliverables within deadlines throughout the project life cycle.
Presented regular project status updates to the senior management to get alignment and highlighted key deliverables, scope changes, budget impacts, dependencies, and initiated corrective actions to resolve issues in a timely manner.
Led the Live Chat online channel strategy development; researched, analyzed customer data, created project briefs, and managed UI experts/3rd party vendors & IT partners to implement chat functionality to improve the customer experience.
HSBC (2nd Largest Bank by Assets - Globally) Buffalo, USA
Project Manager/Lead Consultant for a digital consulting initiative to rollout “self-service tablets” (iPads) to 200 branches across the US to achieve some key objectives/benefits including: increase digital engagement of existing and new customers, increase net promoter and customer satisfaction scores, and enhance revenue based on increased profitability of digitally engaged clients.
Led the Online self-serve channel strategies; researched, analyzed customer data, created project briefs, and managed UI experts/3rd party vendors & IT partners to implement self-serve functionality to improve the adoption and customer experience. Resulted in #1 preferred method (80%) of managing customers’ services according to a survey.
TD Canada Trust (Largest Bank by Assets - Canada) Toronto, Canada
Project Manager brought in to lead the definition, building and launching of a Shared Service Organization dedicated to the harvesting, storing and utilization of common components (code, programs and languages etc.). This project was closely tied into the acquisition of MBNA (a Credit Card company) by TD Canada Trust.
Royal Bank of Canada (Largest Bank by Revenue - Canada)Toronto, Canada
Work stream lead for the development of an Executive 'Balanced' Scorecard (utilizing Tableau visualization technology) for the Head of Business Financial Services and her Senior Management Team to obtain real-time insights. Responsible for understanding, documenting and validating requirements for the development of the Executive Scorecard for the 3 client segments (Small Business, Commercial Financial Services and Senior Markets) that constitute Business Financial Services.
Developed a new and differentiated sales model for the newly created Auto Finance division post-merger. Worked with the client team to assess current sales models, incorporate global best practices, develop segmentation, revenue opportunity insights and recommend a sales model.
PricewaterhouseCoopers – PwC (3-month client engagement)Accra, Ghana
Senior Consultant, Strategy & Operations Group – Advisory Practice 2012
Engaged for a 3-month contract by PwC to assist in the development of a medium-term strategy for an international bank.
Selected Client Experiences:
Guaranty Trust Bank (Ghana) Limited (2015 – Best Bank in Nigeria Award by Euromoney)
Trusted advisor to the Ghanaian subsidiary of an international bank on a medium-term strategy specifically to achieve significant growth objectives. Client was seeking to grow profit before taxes (PBT) ambitiously, and my team provided a roadmap of specific initiatives across both cost centers and profit centers in order to achieve those goals.
Deloitte Consulting Toronto, Ontario
Senior Consultant, Technology Strategy & Architecture Group – Private Company Services 2011 - 2012
Provided private mid-market ($30 million - $100 million revenue) companies with consulting services, alignment of business strategy with IT strategy and business applications planning.
Selected Client Experiences:
Canada Goose Inc. (Luxury Outerwear Manufacturer)
Advised a client on transforming aging IT platform through process optimization and recommending cutting edge apparel systems to improve governance, increase manufacturing efficiency and position the business for approximately $10 - $15 million in projected revenue growth for next calendar year.
Stikeman Elliott LLP (Top ranked Corporate Law Firm – Canada)
Performed a data centre assessment, conducted a cost-benefit analysis and developed a Request for Proposal (RFP) as part of the process to migrate an in-house data center to a 3rd party external data center vendor resulting in approximately $2 million in cost savings.
Accenture Toronto, Ontario
Consultant, Systems Implementation & Technology 2008 – 2011
Provided private & public companies, start-ups and Accenture with strategic initiatives, systems integration, costs savings and other consulting services.
Selected Client Experiences:
Shoppers Drug Mart (Largest Pharmaceutical Retailer – Canada)
Lead consultant / business analyst that conducted data analysis, data management, requirements gathering and financial modeling to support business case development for pharmacy operations transformation initiatives.
Project consultant that supported the implementation of pharmaceutical distribution transformation initiatives, including online prescription refills, automated reminders and others resulting in significant profitability and enhanced customer satisfaction.
Loblaw Companies Limited (Largest Grocery & Pharmaceutical Retailer - Canada)
Crafted the business case for an $80 million business process outsourcing (BPO) engagement where the critical supply chain function of Loblaw Companies Limited including drugs was outsourced to India to achieve a savings of over $20 million over a 5-year period.
FREEDOM Mobile (4th Largest Telecom Operator – Canada)
Led a team of consultants to launch a Greenfield wireless operator within 7 months in Canada. High pressure environment given the cost of wireless spectrum to the wireless operator was $442 million.
S4Potential Ottawa, Ontario
Hybrid Technology and Psychotherapy Company that built software programs for mass market and corporate institutions across North America.
Technology Marketing and Sales Associate 2006 – 2008
Reported into CEO and responsible for all marketing and sales including Search Engine Optimization for corporate website, designing and publishing brochure material, attending trade shows and connecting with potential customers.
Direct input in the business development process resulting in the creation of sales pipeline worth CAD $7million.
Responsible for both internal and external marketing initiatives.
Acted as Chief of Staff to my direct supervisor (Company President & CEO)
The Foundry Program Ottawa, Ontario
Consultant 2005 - 2006
Worked with a team of consultants that evaluated and researched various technologies that our clients wanted to bring to the market.
Assisted clients with developing business proposals in order to obtain startup capital from the program.
Prepared market evaluations and competitive analysis (SWOT / PEST etc.) of client’s technology and innovative ideas.
EDUCATION
Queen’s School of Business (Queen’s University)Kingston, Ontario
Master of Business Administration (MBA) 2011
Carleton UniversityOttawa, Ontario
Bachelor of Commerce, (BCom) Honours2006
CERTIFICATIONS & COURSES
Institute of Corporate DirectorsToronto, Ontario
Audit Committee Effectiveness (ACE)2019
Project Management InstituteToronto, Ontario
Project Management Professional (PMP)2017
Harvard UniversityCambridge, Massachusetts
Design Thinking Program2016
Queen’s UniversityKingston, Ontario
Socially Responsible Leadership2011
AFFILIATIONS, MEMBERSHIPS, PUBLICATIONS
Affiliations: Fundraiser - United Way of Greater Toronto & York Region, Usher - The City Church of Mississauga, Leadership Course Tutor – Delta Family Resource Center
Memberships: Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD), Project Management Institute (PMI), United Way Greater Toronto & York Region
Publications:
1. “Digital Transformation 2.0 - Your Financial Institution has embarked on a few digital initiatives. The question on your mind now is “What’s next?” (published 2016)
2. “Come and Thrive” book - A guide for young people, new graduates and newcomers to Canada. (published 2019)
EXTRACURRICULAR
Extracurricular: Adjunct Professor at Seneca College (Ontario, Canada) where I lectured on the subject: Advanced Information Technology Project Management.
LANGUAGES
English (Native)
French (Basic)
CITIZENSHIPS
Canada
United Kingdom
References available on request
