Regional Credit Manager

The ASR Group family of companies make up the world's largest refiner and marketer of cane sugar. The companies produce a full line of grocery, industrial, food service and specialty sweetener products. Across North America, ASR Group companies operate five sugar refineries, located in California, Maryland, Louisiana, Canada and Mexico. In Europe, ASR Group companies operate sugar refineries in the United Kingdom, Portugal, and, with a joint venture partner, Italy.

The companies also farm sugarcane and own sugar mills in Mexico and Belize. The ASR Group portfolio includes the leading brands Domino, C&H, Florida Crystals, Redpath, Tate & Lyle, Lyle's, Sidul and Whitworths. ASR Group companies also produce and market Tellus, a single-use, compostable tableware and food service product made from plant fibers, including sugarcane.

The primary objective of the Regional Credit Manager (RCM) is to assist in maximizing customer sales and profitability while minimizing the risk of A/R losses due to bad debt. To accomplish this, the RCM will provide corporate credit risk analysis for a geographical portion of the Company's total Customer Credit Portfolio. Responsibilities include identifying, gathering, analyzing and interpreting any and all types of relevant credit and financial information on existing and prospective industrial, food service, specialty, export and grocery customers within the assigned Portfolio.

This analysis and interpretation will include detailed reviews of customer financial statements including balance sheets, income statements and statement of cashflows, notes to financial statements, along with effective utilization of traditional credit scoring tools such as Dunn & Bradstreet, F&D, S&P, Moody's and Credit Risk Monitor reporting services. The RCM will synthesize such external data with internal profit profile data to determine and recommend optimal credit terms and then convey those recommendations with supporting theses through written narratives and presentations to executive level management.

Once established, the RCM will ensure that customers operate within their credit terms and proactively monitor and evaluate the portfolio for necessary changes outside of regularly scheduled review dates.

In addition, the RCM, with the assistance of a Collection Analyst, will ensure the portfolio continually meets corporate A/R goals for maximizing the speed and ease of cash collections and minimizing delinquencies, DSO, bad debt losses and costs of collection. The RCM will maintain a detailed knowledge of all customer account activity from order through cash collection and deduction management and will identify process issues leading to repeated payment delays or deductions and recommend and implement "order to cash" process improvements that will result in greater customer satisfaction and improved payment and profit performance.

The RCM's key areas of responsibilities include Risk Analysis, Order to Cash Process Oversight, Customer Relationships, Reporting, System Maintenance and Enhancement and Process Development. Duties within these areas of responsibility will include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Monitor industry, customer and general market conditions for changes that might impact portfolio credit terms and/or current receivable value.
• Proactively build and strengthen relationships with customers, sales managers, trade association peers, banks and legal experts to improve the depth and timeliness of risk analysis information.
• Maintain the organization of permanent digital credit files for each individual customer and administer and manage the client credit database.
• Establish and maintain database of customer audited financial statements including notification alerts that new audited financials should be available.
• For those clients who will not allow release of audited financials, coordinate or negotiate with client for alternative methods to obtain financial information such as conference calls or on-site reviews.
• Prepare scheduled credit line reviews of all existing accounts and assign next credit review dates.
• Obtain trade and bank references for new and existing customers and emergency requests.
• Seek alternate credit security options (Guarantees, Standy LC's, UCC filings, etc.) that meet a customer's business needs while protecting our accounts receivable asset.
• Provide credit management with a dynamic perspective of issues affecting the…