Nigel Hawley

Acting CFO & Advisor to Founders

2023

Helping to scale at speed, Wear The House, which is on a mission to uplift one's mood and help you escape the ordinary through our prism of color and pattern. We want to elevate people's interiors beyond what you think is possible by blurring the lines between fashion, art and celebrity. Co-founders Jennifer and David are creative inventors on a mission to push the boundaries of interior design with their bold, colorful and unique products. They believe there is an intrinsic link between how you dress and how you dress your home or WEAR THE HOUSE, and this is their driving force. We are currently focusing on the US marketplace, working with influencers like Paris Hilton we are selling direct to consumers through our own website. Plans are being develop for a launch in the GCC very soon.

Member Board of Directors

2023

Investor, Board Member, Mentor and Coach to the Senior Management team of the Gallery One Group. Gallery One Group has a long history in the UAE. Originally founded in London in 2004 and brought to Dubai by the Sedgwick family in 2006. Gallery One has had an ever present retail footprint from the original Madinat Jumeriah up until the most recent opening in Nakheel Mall on The Palm, as well as in every other landmark mall in between. In recent years the Group has expanded beyond retail and online to focus on building a highly successful Projects business designing, producing and installing a vast array of artwork in an impressive range of MENA's finest hotels, restaurants and high end villas.

Investor - Venture Capitalist

2018

Chief Operating Officer

2020 - 2023

Lead the turnaround of this private group of retail supermarkets after it fell into trouble during the covid pandemic. Turnaround strategy included consolidation of warehouses, relocation of HQ, closure of loss making units and opening of new units, streamlining of procurement process, gross margin expansion, transformation of the finance function and cleanup of the cap table. Resulting in a 10X improvement on the Monthly / Annual net profit.

Chief of Staff

2021 - 2022

Worked directly with CEO of the MBC group to oversee and deliver a number of key corporate projects. The main remit included the development of a relocation plan and associated budget to relocate the company from Dubai, UAE to Riyadh, KSA which has now been successfully completed. Other projects included the deployment of key financial systems, data governance policies, implementation of KPI monitoring system for senior management team amongst numerous other projects.

Managing Director

2018 - 2020

Overall commercial responsibility for the Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan with full P&L responsibility across all business units. Camfil is a world leader in the development and production of air filters and clean air solutions. Camfil is one of the most global air filtration specialists in the world with 30 production units and 6 R&D centres across the Americas, Europe, South East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Director, EMEA

2012 - 2016

Finance leader for the Ingersoll Rand businesses in EMEA. Finance leader for the global deployment of an ORACLE ERP system, migration to a global trading platform (based in Ireland) and significant change management programme across the whole organisation leading to the creation of a cross sector finance team responsible for all Record to Report (RTR) and Accounts Payable (AP) functions across EMEA, consisting of multi site finance professionals based across Europe.

Vice President, Climate Solutions Middle East India & Africa (now Trane Technologies)

2009 - 2012

Overall commercial responsibility across the Middle East, India and Africa for a multi-channel industrial business consisting of three business lines (product, service, contracting) through both direct sales offices and independent distributors. Full PL responsibility with a total headcount of 300 people.

Trane - Finance Leader, Middle East, India, Africa (now Trane Technologies)

2006 - 2009

Overall responsibility for all financial matters across the region. Working with a team of 8 direct reports and a total team of 40 people. Acting as a business partner to the Regional Manager on all commercial matters including large sales, product introductions, marketing etc/

EMEIA Director of Audit (originally American Standard)

2003 - 2006

Overall responsibility for a dedictaed Finance and IT team of auditors performing risk management, audits and investigations across Europe, Middle East, Africa and India.

Senior Manager (UK)

1989 - 2002

Audit, Advisory, Risk Managament and Corporate Governance services

Senior Manager (USA)

1996 - 1997

Member of global development team redesigning KPMG risk based audit methodology. Involving a complete redesign of the methodology and then commencing a global deployment across all member firms.