Dubai, UAE · Europe
Marie Starke
Strategic Financial Advisor · GCC & Europe
Helping growing businesses make better decisions by creating the financial clarity needed to understand performance, identify risks early and plan for the future.
Open for: CFO · FP&A build-out · Forecasting and cash visibility
“Finance gives leaders the confidence to decide what's next.”
15+
years in strategic finance
$250M
revenue scale supported
~80%
forecast variance reduction delivered
20%
cost savings on an FP&A rebuild
Areas of expertise
- — Forecasting & Budgeting
- — Financial Modelling
- — FP&A Build-Out
- — Performance Management
- — Business Partnering
- — Cash Visibility & Funding Planning
- — Real Estate, Professional Services, Oil & Gas
- — UAE & Europe
Profile
Finance is one of the most underutilised functions in growing businesses. Too often it stops at accounting and historical reporting, when its real value lies in providing the clarity and visibility leaders need to make better decisions. Senior finance leadership across professional services, real estate development and oil & gas — including building and transforming strategic finance capabilities at Bain & Company.
How she helps
- — Create clarity — reliable reporting that gives leadership an accurate, trusted view of performance.
- — Generate insight — analysis that identifies the drivers behind revenue, profitability, cost and operations.
- — Build visibility — driver-based forecasting and forward cash visibility, so funding needs surface early.
- — Enable confident decisions — decisions made on facts rather than assumptions.
Business impact
- — Built the core FP&A foundations for a $200M business: management reporting, forecasting, five-year planning and clear ownership — contributing to ~10% revenue growth, ~20% cost savings and restructured borrowing on better terms.
- — Rebuilt a forecasting process around business drivers with a probability-weighted approach, cutting forecast variance by ~80% and connecting expected financial performance directly to operational activity.
What is at risk without financial confidence
- — Unexpected cash shortfalls and expensive last-minute funding.
- — Hidden losses in products, customers or business units.
- — Major decisions taken without understanding their full financial impact.
- — Growth outpacing financial visibility until risks become expensive to fix.
Work with Marie
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