Yahya Yacoob

I find money inside companies that nobody else is looking for, prove it with the company's own numbers, and build the report that keeps it found. I have done this for eleven years at two large companies.

The pattern is always the same. A budget is approved as one number. Underneath it sit suppliers nobody compared, agencies paid out of habit, and deals with shops nobody checked against what they gave back. Opening that pile is boring, awkward and slow, which is why it stays closed. I open it. That has meant £3M+ in yearly savings, a budget built from zero that replaced "last year plus inflation", and a question that changed how the company thinks about shop deals: what did the money we gave this retailer actually give back?

The second half of the work is the report. I taught myself Power BI to turn roughly 500 spreadsheets into one picture, in two clicks, then taught teams to run and extend it without me. The point was never the dashboard. The point was that the leak stays visible after I leave the room.

What I bring to a company run by its owner

• Where to look. Eleven years of reading costs means I often know which ones will move before I see the data.
• Proof in your own numbers. One report built from your own accounts, not a slide deck. Nobody argues with their own numbers.
• Decisions in the room. I sit with the people who own the costs and we decide: switch supplier, bundle, cut or renegotiate.
• A system that outlives me. Your team uses it. Every three months I check that nothing crept back.
• Three languages. Arabic, English and German. Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Gulf without an interpreter.

Background