Cheryl McLeod

As CEO of FoodLegal, Australia's leading food regulatory consultancy, I led strategic direction, growth, and innovation of the company for almost 7 years.

With a mandate to grow the business, I transformed the business to be Australia's leading food regulatory consultancy. FoodLegal is now poised for sale. During this period I grew revenues and headcount 500%, whilst maintaining profitability.

• Overall responsibility for day to day running of the business, including key account management, business development, financial, HR, IT, insurances and premises.
• Strategically focussed on delivering high-quality and tailored solutions that reduce commercial risk and increase profitability for clients.
• Scaled operations, products, and services and grew the client base to include global retailers, food manufacturers and brand owners, whilst also increasing the dollar value of pieces of work.
• Established foundational processes for business operations.
• Formulated and executed strategic initiatives to improve product offerings.
• Collaborated with key and prospective clients on speculative initiatives to enable identification and implementation of new streams of revenue.
• Developed and commercialised innovative SaaS compliance tools that enable faster and more efficient product development and labelling, with a global retailer being the first subscriber.
• Cultivated a company-wide culture of innovation, collaboration, trust, accountability and curiosity within the team.
• Coached and guided senior managers to improve employee skill sets, resulting in increased retention rates.
• Built productive relationships with industry partners to support strategic business objectives and expand opportunities.
• Established and maintained strong relationships with customers, vendors and strategic partners.

• Leading implementation of the commercialisation process across TES, including stakeholder engagement across Australia Post, as well as design, development, implementation and adoption of the digital solution.

In a high-growth tech start-up (SaaS product), I delivered business strategy, fund raising, business development, customer centred solution design, and operational oversight.

• Leading, developing and optimising performance of Operations (an internal team of 5), including responsibility for the delivery experience through multiple external delivery partners (individuals, partnerships and corporates including Australia Post).
• Responsibility for pre-sales solution design, set-up and training (top tier national Australian retailers and movers), project management of implementation, pilots, roll-outs, customer service and operations, and performance management of retailer/mover, focusing on scalability.
• Leading on-boarding and successful development and delivery performance of enterprise clients.
• Representing Operations in leadership forums, Board Meetings, and with current / prospective movers and retail clients, operating from “C-suite” to the “loading dock”.

Responsibility for leading change management relating to operationalisation of Operations and Maintenance Master Agreement.

• Identified impacted parties, business partners and resources required for planned changes.
• Reviewed internal systems and organized training plans to address areas in need of improvement.
• Provided professional services and support in a dynamic work environment.
• Fostered strong relationships with key partners, both across the organisation as well as the external service delivery partners, by acting as a trusted advisor on change management best practices.

Organisation review and redesign recommendations for clients to achieve business imperatives.

• Championed process improvements that resulted in enhanced operational efficiencies.
• Leveraged data and analytics to make informed decisions and drive business improvements.
• Recommended and implemented practical business process solutions, working directly with stakeholders to drive customer expansion and increase revenue generation.

Responsibility for overall program management of all organisation wide transformation projects, including prioritisation, financial management and project support.

• Project management and delivery of organisation wide projects.
• Trained existing employees to maximize team agility and performance.
• Facilitated successful cross-functional collaborations for completion of key projects, fostering strong working relationships among team members.
• Planned and budgeted accurately to provide business with resources needed to operate smoothly.

Operational management and strategic development globally of Business Services Division (BSD). BSD's responsibility included management and delivery of Corporate Real Estate, Corporate Services and Business Continuity Planning for Macquarie globally.

• Responsibility for ongoing strategic, organisational and operational reviews and design, and subsequent implementation, growing BSD from 80 Australian based staff to 250 staff globally with $40Mpa operational budget and responsibility for $400M of expenditure.
• Responsibility for management of finance, risk, information technology and human resources.
• Identification, negotiation and ownership of commercial initiatives including commercial leasing, outsourced operations, global travel program, childcare centres and cafes.
• Managed cross-functional teams for multiple large-scale global projects, successfully completing each on time and within budget constraints.

Provision of corporate and information technology legal advice to a variety of corporate clients.

• Conducted research and analysis of specific legal questions and advised business on variety of legal areas.
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• Improved internal processes by streamlining document management systems, increasing efficiency within the firm.

Management consulting projects completed for a variety of clients (including Ansett, TXU, ABC, North Mining) incorporating:

• Program and project management
• Change management
• Business process re-engineering
• Organisation design
• SAP / PeopleSoft finance system implementation

The key project was Program Management of the Ansett Olympic Investment Program across 20 projects (covering commercial, network, hospitality, marketing), enabling Ansett to maximise their sponsorship expenditure.

I was also responsible for the development of project management capability to be rolled out internally across PwC Consulting.

Strategy management consulting projects completed for a variety of clients (including Telstra, Pacific Dunlop, General Motors, Wellington City Council) incorporating:

• Strategy
• Organisation design
• Strategic sourcing

Delivery of management consulting projects across a variety of clients (including Commonwealth Bank, Telstra, Jupiters Casino) incorporating:

• System design and implementation across the systems development lifecycle.
• Supported clients with business analysis, documentation, and data modelling.