Background
Maurice D. Heffernan, Jr.
CEO
Santa Barbara, CA
Mr. Heffernan is a Senior Executive with 27 years of experience who has served as a Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operations Officer, and Chief Compliance Officer across a broad spectrum of industries in companies of all different sizes, types, and stages of development. Mr. Heffernan has substantial executive leadership expertise in strategic planning, revenue growth development, turnarounds, P&L responsibility, financial planning and forecasting, M&A, and investor relations.
Mr. Heffernan served as the Chief Financial & Operating Officer for Santa Barbara Asset Management, an Investment Advisor, purchased by Nuveen Investments in October 2005. Prior to Nuveen acquiring Santa Barbara Mr. Heffernan served as Chief Compliance & Operating Officer. During Mr. Heffernan's tenure, Santa Barbara continued its well established success in raising assets under management, growing from approximately $2 billion to just over $4 billion, and Mr. Heffernan significantly increased operational efficiency to handle this tremendous growth.
Prior to joining Santa Barbara, Mr. Heffernan served as Chief Executive Officer for Heffernan Inc. During this timeframe Mr. Heffernan represented Compatible Glass, a hot glass manufacturer, as their Merger & Acquisition consultant. Prior to consummating the sale, the company had a severe cash burn, which was making the company un-sellable. Mr. Heffernan immediately took corrective measures and within one month of taking over, and up until a deal was consummate some six months later; the company maintained a positive cash flow. Additionally, Mr. Heffernan improved the financial performance month after month, demonstrating the hidden asset value. The sale was completed with more value being realized for ownership than they had expected.
Prior to starting Heffernan Inc., Mr. Heffernan served as Vice President of Finance and Operations for Body Trends Health & Fitness, Inc. Body Trends the on-line leader in health & fitness products, which sells over 2,000 health & fitness related SKU's on-line internationally. Some of Mr. Heffernan's significant accomplishments while at Body Trends include the following:
- Turned around the company from a multi-million annual loss to an annual profit, and improved cash flow from a multi-million annual cash burn to positive cash flow, all in just 20 months. These results were acknowledged by our independent CPA firm with the issuance of an Unqualified Opinion; all accomplished while the dot com's were failing, and while the U.S. economy was in a recession.
- Developed and executed a strategic and tactical business plan that was instrumental in securing funding and used as a road map to profitability.
- Increased profitability by sourcing product from the Pacific Rim.
- Reduced overhead saving millions of dollars annually while simultaneously increasing productivity.
- Developed financial reporting systems to provide executive management with tools to measure overall financial performance as well as departmental and product line profitability.
- Created cash forecasting system and working capital measurement metrics, which provided company with information required to take corrective actions.
- Implemented policies and procedures in order to accelerate monthly preparation of financial statements from 30 days to 5 days, thereby allowing for financial information to be more quickly available for analysis to take improvement actions.
- Responsible for negotiating all contact and lease agreements, resulting in favorable financial terms for the Company.
Mr. Heffernan also served for 12 years, the last 5 years as the Assistant Controller, for the National Football League Properties, Inc. (NFL) Upon his arrival the Company had 35 employees with Revenues of $35M, upon his departure some 12 years later the Company had 100 employees with Revenues of $150M, and was the worldwide leader in sports marketing and brand recognition. Some of Mr. Heffernan's significant accomplishments while with the NFL include the following:
- Assisted with set-up of international subsidiaries in London and The Hague, and designed and implemented the reporting systems and performed year-end consolidation.
- Assisted with the set-up of a catalog fulfillment operation, and set-up the reporting systems.
- Managed a multi-million dollar investment portfolio that included international transfers of foreign currency and letters of credit, and restructured cash management, which improved cash flow by multi-million dollars.
- Responsible for the development and oversight of a multi-million dollar operating budget for seven domestic and international divisions.
- Implemented royalty audit program, which generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual recoveries.
- Responsible for year-end closing and was primary contact with auditors handling all year-end closing issues and reporting to stockholders.
- Project managed an in-house developed software implementation that intergraded global operations with general ledger.
- Recommended numerous marketing ideas that generated millions of dollars annually.
- Worked with a team of executives to establish the National Football League (NFL) as one of premier sport brands. Hence, familiar with all aspects of Sports Marketing and how to use the power of a major sports brand to leverage marketing deals, relations, and position.
Mr. Heffernan graduated from Saint Peter's College with a BS degree in Accounting (1979). During his career Mr. Heffernan has been a frequent speaker both domestically and internationally.