Joël Gagnon

Experiences

Mandate: Manage a portfolio of strategic and business development projects for the Vice-President (VP) of Retail.
Develop and deploy business intelligence (BI) solutions using the software PowerBI, and oversee its maintenance by a team in India. Result: 10 key decision-makers now have access to a powerful, low-cost analysis tool.
Create strategic dashboards. Result: All team members, from store managers to the Chief Operating Officer (COO), now have access to tailored reports on a daily basis.
Facilitate projects related to optimizing product offering and staff management. Result: The implementation of better practices have led to improved sales.

Mandate: Manage strategic projects and analyses sponsored by the COO and other managers.
Deploy an effective contingency plan. Result: Assisted 20 VPs to design and implement cost-reduction measures and achieve the corporate goals set by the COO.
Set up an internal Innovation Committee and support its activities. Result: Some complex multi-department cost-cutting projects were proposed to the COO and integrated to the effective contingency plan.
Develop sales strategies for boosting show attendance, including optimizing price setting decisions using benchmarking and business intelligence tools. Result: The adoption of more efficient tools led to increased sales.
Support the reorganization of operations under several VPs. Result: Members of the Itinerant Shows team and Information Technology team now operate under a new business model that is more flexible and more cost effective.
Create business plans on demand for 20 vice-presidents and support their decision-making through internal data analysis and external benchmarking. Result: The most promising projects were prioritized and their costs/benefits more precisely identified.

Mandate: Support managers and officers in their financial planning.
Assist with budget design, analysis, and technical management reports. Result: Supported vice-president could achieve better cost controls.
Improve financial processes related to planning, cash flows, payables and receivables, investissements, and the balance sheet. Result: Financial processes are now more streamlined and efficient.
Manage 5 interns. Result: Improve financial processes at a low cost while providing valuable professional development experience to participants.

Mandate: Support the financial planning needs of managers and officers.
Co-create a business plan for the development of the Global 7000/8000 airplane series and present the plan to a multidisciplinary project team. Result: The project was launched in 2010.
Support the creation of budgets, analyze discrepancies, and create management reports. Result: Managers and officers exercised better cost control.
Initiate and lead a corporate continuous-improvement project. Result: Certification of a team of 20 financial professionals.
Lead the conversion of a master database ahead of a planned implementation of the SAP software in a production facility. Result: Users were able to use the database as soon as SAP was deployed.

Lac-Abitibi School Board, Québec, 2012. Initiated and coordinated the donation of 60 computers from Cirque du Soleil to elementary school children in rural Quebec.
Cirque du Monde, Québec and Mongolia, 2011. Organized a fund-raising event in Montreal and distributed the funds to beneficiaries in Mongolia.
Delek Hospital, Québec and India, 2008. Organized a fund-raising concert in Montreal, purchased and installed computers, and provided basic computer training to the medical staff of a hospital in India.

Education

Certificates in:

Participation in monthly trainings on latest functionalities of Power Bi

Fundamentals of Visualization with Tableau (offered by UC-Davis)
Specialization Business Analytics (offered by The Wharton School)

Skills

Interests

CPA, project manager, and financial analyst who is recognized for his strategic thinking, creativity, and mastery of analysis and business intelligence tools

French