Nikhil Arora

• Develop/review financial models catering to project documents, legal/tax/accounting guidelines, financing/ownership structures, actual financials, model optimization approaches and accounting standards
• Convene client meetings to establish project scope, prepare budgets and monitor progress to ensure engagements are completed on time and within budget
• Liaison with various functional teams/stakeholders including finance, accounting, tax, operations, shareholders and lenders
• Develop, test and debug various VBA codes for client models and internal tools
• Quality review of financial models created by other colleagues
• Analyze financial data to ensure accuracy of information presented and support clients on making investments/funding decisions
• Assist clients on scenario analysis, stress testing, periodic roll forward of financial forecasts and KPIs tracking
• Explore key processes/efficiency related improvement initiatives for Mode Build (MB) team (~80-100) along with Mazars' global MB practice innovation lead
• Create modeling templates to be used as starting/reference point
• Hands-on experience in teaching financial modeling, project finance and basic VBA concepts to graduates/lateral recruits from scratch
• Supervise, coach and mentor team members
• Provide guidance to 2-3 direct reports, including 1 Consultant and 2 Associate Consultants
• Deliver presentations on multiple accounting/technical topics to 20-40 colleagues
• Contribute in overall team management activities including appraisals and hiring
• Seconded to Model Audit team for four months

Key Assignments

• Feasibility analysis model for chemical plastic recycling projects for recycling plastics that cannot be recycled using mechanical recycling. If scaled-up, these projects can make significant contribution towards global ESG goals as only ~35% of plastic waste can currently be recycled mechanically. Model also included functionality to automatically extend model timeline with click of button
• Suite of portfolio valuation, funding and investment analysis models for UK based investment trust that owns and manages battery based energy storage assets. models had functionality for actual financials, asset/trust level calculations and automated mechanisms to export and import financial data between models

Accomplishments

• Incorporated third party/in-house modeling tools (and methods) with many smart and intuitive features that significantly improved team's efficiency (10-20%) with regards to replication of calculations, excel formatting, understanding complicated client models, analyzing data and comparing models versions etc

Key responsibilities at KPMG were similar to present work profile at Mazars:

• Manage model build/review assignments for bid exercises/project financing/M&A transactions
• Market KPMG India infrastructure advisory team's skills to global KPMG network
• Worked with other KPMG Canada to develop their expertise on financial modelling
• Gained exposure to asset management, financial due diligence and secondary research assignments

Key Assignments

• Bid Model for 100 MW solar PV project in Oman, for leading Japanese investor (2017): worked on financial model catering to bid and PPA terms/specifications, with complex financing structures. Developed automated mechanism to optimize bid price at P50 generation level while sizing debt at P90
• Led number of model review assignments, ensuring adherence to processes and quality of outputs

Asset management modelling (Canadian, 2016)

• Prepared budget prioritization models for municipalities looking to allocate funds for maintenance/replacement of large number of assets with aim to maximize derived benefits for society
• Asset class/sectors covered include roads, buildings, synthetic turfs and retaining walls

Accomplishments

Created (from scratch) model audit/build project delivery guidelines for KPMG Infra Advisory India team (30 colleagues):

• Detailed instruction documents for standardizing implementation approach on projects and for containing certain risks
• Defined role of project leads
• Specified internal model testing/review checklists and approval processes

• Worked on Debt Structuring, Working Capital Financing, Cash Flow Management primarily for renewable energy projects
• Key responsibilities included pitching for big ticket loan proposals to investment committee (board members), coordinating with functional teams (credit/legal/compliance), managing TRA accounts (7) and client relations
• Appraised 100 MW wind power project, pitched loan proposal to investment committee, contributed in deal negotiations, compliances and disbursements

• Conducted market research on online insurance market in India by interviewing senior executives of 4 other insurers

• Conduct targeted secondary research to generate meaningful insights for clients
• Gained experience on various databases including "CapitalIQ, Factiva, Bloomberg & Euromonitor