JOHN FITZGERALD
John Fitzgerald
John is a Director at Zolfo Cooper with expertise providing financial leadership to support business decisions and drive operational improvement. He has extensive international experience in the areas of strategic planning, forecasting, merger and acquisitions, controllership, information systems and management development. John’s track record includes both large, multinational corporations and start-ups in a range of industries such as manufacturing; apparel; fashion; cosmetics; publishing; entertainment; oil and gas; paper and textiles.
Professional Experience
Most recently he served as the vice president of finance for Paxar and led all financial planning, reporting and analysis for the $350 million manufacturer of apparel identification systems with 11 locations throughout North and Latin America. In this position, John:
- Restructured US Domestic and Latin American operations to align capital assets for highest returns. Per annum savings in excess of $10 million.
- Acquired and integrated manufacturing companies to consolidate and grow market share while lowering the average cost of manufacturing.
- Reduced inventory days from 65 to 56 through targeted analysis of product type by geographic location, thus reducing working capital by $4 million.
- Designed and implemented three year strategic plan.
- Managed Oracle ERP system migration to view similar data across multiple sites and streamline the customer service function.
- Standardized reporting metrics at all manufacturing sites, to provide a basis for best practices and restore margins at underperforming sites.
- Implemented internal controls in compliance with the provisions of Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley.
Previously, John served as vice president and corporate controller for a $700 million global provider of retail supply chain identification and tracking systems. He was also the controller of Chanel, the vice president of accounting services for Simon & Schuster, and the CFO of Panavision. In addition, John was an audit senior for Arthur Andersen.
Education, Certification & Professional Affiliations
- B.S., Villanova University
- Certified public accountant