Author: Silver

Sara Brownlie

  • Sara is known for her strategic finance and technical ability and her experience in leading her teams to deliver insightful business advice.
  • Sara has held senior operational and executive roles in the public sector prior to that had experience at Deloittes and Unilever NZ Ltd.
  • Her experience implementing new teams, financial systems and process improvements along with her natural style in building relationships make her an invaluable partner in any organisation.
  • She is quick to learn the business/sector, pragmatic, results driven and brings energy and commitment to every project.

The Phoenix Checklist

The Phoenix Checklist

This list of questions, formally known as “The Phoenix Checklist,” was originally developed by the CIA as a way to enable their agents and operatives to think about a problem thoroughly.

The Problem

  • Why is it necessary to solve the problem?
  • What benefits will you receive by solving the problem?
  • What is the unknown?
  • What is it you don’t yet understand?
  • What is the information you have?
  • What isn’t the problem?
  • Is the information sufficient? Is it insufficient? Is it redundant? Is it contradictory?
  • Should you draw a diagram or figure of the problem?
  • Where are the boundaries of the problem?
  • Can you separate the various parts of the problem? Can you write them down? What are the relationships of the parts of the problem? What are the constants of the problem?
  • Have you seen this problem before?
  • Have you seen this problem in a slightly different form? Do you know a related problem?
  • Suppose you find a problem related to yours that has already been solved. Can you use it? Can you use its method?
  • Can you restate your problem? How many different ways can you restate it? More general? More specific? Can the rules be changed?
  • What are the best, worst and most probable cases you can imagine?

The Plan

  • Can you solve the whole problem? How about part of the problem?
  • What would you like the resolution to be? Can you picture it?
  • How much of the unknown(s) can you determine?
  • Can you derive something useful from the information you have?
  • Have you used all the information?
  • Have you taken into account all essential notions in the problem?
  • Can you separate the steps in the problem-solving process? Can you determine the correctness of each step?
  • What creative thinking techniques can you use to generate ideas? How many different techniques?
  • Can you see the result? How many different kinds of results can you see?
  • How many different ways have you tried to solve the problem?
  • What have others done?
  • Can you intuit the solution? Can you check the result?
  • What should be done? How should it be done? Where should it be done? When should it be done? Who should do it?
  • What do you need to do at this time?
  • Who will be responsible for what?
  • Can you use this problem to solve some other problem?
  • What is the unique set of qualities that makes this problem what it is and none other?
  • What milestones can best mark your progress?
  • How will you know when you are successful?

Principal Director – Sara Brownlie

My name is Sara.

With over 20 years experience I bring a wealth of senior financial leadership skills and capability.  I have worked across multiple disciplines ranging from business performance analysis, ministerial support, project management and strategic and operation financial leadership.  My extensive breadth of roles has enabled me to have responsibility for or significant involvement in functional disciplines of asset management, property, procurement, risk management, contract negotiation, financial and business performance reporting, and governance.    
 
I hold a Top Secret clearance and can be trusted to demonstrate the integrity and discretion required for a senior leadership role.  My experience in government and in a Ministers office means I have comprehensive knowledge of legislative, legal policies, procedures, processes and codes of conduct for the operation of the Government and public sector.  Moving across roles, organisations and different public sectors has required constantly learning about different business and operating environments.  I have completed three full financial systems implementations so fully understand the technology capability available to ensure strong internal controls and facilitate business information and process improvement.
 
Over the last five years, I have operated at a Chief Financial Officer level responsible, through the Central Agencies Shared Services (CASS – hosted within Treasury), for the strategic financial management of The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, State Services Commission and NZ Treasury.  This role has required me to not only fully develop and demonstrate financial leadership but also to navigate through complex internal and senior stakeholder relationships with conflicting priorities.  The shared services environment required a planned approach to customer liaison and expectation management.  At the inception of CASS, the finance teams were reduced by 30%.  I needed to be motivational and inspiring to my team to encourage the extra effort that was needed to deliver all results while undertaking process improvements.    The role continued to be extremely busy as DPMC in particular, inherited the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management and the Canterbury Earthquake Authority.  This required the application of exceptional prioritisation.  In this role I constantly needed to adapt and change and to learn on the fly given the speed of the introduction of the shared services and the pace of new activities coming into the central agencies.   I have been privileged to have numerous opportunities in NZ and overseas to give presentations about the achievements in this role.
 
Prior to my experience at NZ Treasury, I worked for 9 years at the Ministry of Justice (formerly Department for Courts) holding 5 secondment or project roles but with my most substantial position as the Business Analysis and Finance Manager for the Collections business unit.  In this role I was instrumental in obtaining additional funding to substantially expand the Collections contact centre and ‘track and trace’ processing unit and in managing the financial reporting and debt collection risks subsequent to the go-live to a new Collections IT system. 
 
I have an affable positive approach and I am able to successfully work with my staff, peers and senior leaders to solve problems in a collaborative way.  I am extremely customer focused, very aware of the outcomes that my customers need to deliver and the importance of my team providing high quality and on-time support.