Asith Herath

6.00 AM

The first of many alarms go off… I am notorious for embracing the ‘snooze stage’ but by 6.30 AM I’ve convinced myself to seize the day. I jump into some sports clothes and get ready to hit the gym. Before I leave, I give a big good morning to my significant other – my dog Kobe! 

By 7.00 am, I’m at the gym and ready to sweat it out. While I’m there, I have a look at my phone calendar and get a gauge of what the day will look like in terms of meetings and tasks to complete ahead will look like. Weirdly enough I find it easiest to plan my day and tasks ahead when walking on a treadmill and tired as hell – bizarre!

8.30 AM

I’m back home, showered, and full of endorphins ready to start my day. It’s Wednesday, meaning our whole finance team is in the office so I jump in the car and drive straight to our North Rocksour North Rocks office, so I get in the car and head there.. Today is a big day it's looking like a busy day today as I need to have a look at review how all our the business units (Ice Cream, Foods and Home, Beauty & Personal Care) have performed this month and lock in their forecasted financial performance for the rest of the year.

9.00 AM

At my desk with a coffee in hand, I’m ready to get started. My personal Kanban First thing I do is go to my personal Kanban board to-do list lets me note down exactly what needs to get done today and what can be put on the backburner. My first priority of the day is get the first task of the day is do get the actualised financial results for the month of each of the business teams., so I jump on a call with my manager and grab a seat next to her to go through exactly how each business unit has performed for the month and compare it to their respective forecast.

10.30 AM

Once I’m across how the business performed in the month, my focus shifts towards locking in an updated view of the business’ financial forecast for the rest of the year. With that in mind, I jump to catch up into a meeting with our S&OP (Sales and Operating Operations Process – we love our acronyms at Unilever) Analyst to talk through each of the business units’ financial forecasts.

11.45 AM

By this stage, my head’s full of numbers and my stomach is full of hunger, it’s time for lunch!. I head down to our local café Piccolo Me with a few colleagues. Our finance team has organised to have lunch back at the office so we grab food to go. With a couple of colleagues, I head down the road to our local café Piccolo Me. Before the rush hour starts, I manage to get in early and grab my food to go, as we have organised a total finance team lunch back at the office.

Lunch with the finance team is an awesome opportunity to catch up with other team members that I don’t get the chance to work with directly. Everyone enjoys having a laugh and hearing about the various tasks that colleagues are involved with. One awesome thing about finance at Unilever is the sheer breadth of roles that people can take on – across my two and half years in the graduate program, I have gone from being a sales representative for our Ice Cream division (see me in the Streets get-up below) to be a Finance Business Partner for our main factory in North Rocks.

1.00 PM

In what has become a post-lunch ritual when I am in the office just before I head back to my desk, I fix myself a cup of coffee and peruse through one of the many Streets ice cream freezers we have at our office. I’ve heard through the grapevine that our new Golden Gaytime Coco Pops collaboration ice cream has been stocked in our freezers so fair to say my selection has already been made.

1.30 PM

Before I get back to work, I catch up with one of my mentors in the business. He’s keen to get himself a coffee, so we go for a drive to a local café and have an open and honest chat about career plans and life in general. These sorts of chats and relationships are something that I love about the Unilever network – everyone, regardless of their position, is always keen to take time out of their day to chat about literally anything!

2.00 PM

After a quick chat with a few people in the kitchen, I’m back to work. Next on the work agenda is submitting our month’s results and forecast to our regional and global teams. This is crunch time as there are fairly tight deadlines set by our regional counterparts, so I quickly get back onto our system and sense-check that all the forecasts make sure they are coming through properly. This generally involves looking at which categories have changed their forecasts the most investigating which categories have changed their forecast the most, and consequently finding out exactly why they have moved so much. the reasoning behind the changes.

3.00 PM

Before we send off our finalised company forecast to the regional and global teams, we have one last forecast review session with the finance business partners (of the company’s respective categories) and the CFO. The meeting is tomorrow morning and given the audience, it’s imperative that our numbers and messaging are as accurate and clear as they can be. With that in mind, my manager and I find a meeting room and start preparing for the meeting.

5.00 PM

By now, both my manager and I are prepared for the meeting and completely up-to-speed with the key drivers of the company’s monthly performance and forecast going forward. Whenever reflecting on days like this, it’s extremely rewarding to know that within the space of a day, I have understood the entire business’ monthly financial performance for the month and analysed its entire financial forecast for the rest of the year. Two and half years ago I was spending a whole day procrastinating studying for an online quiz at uni – oh how things are so different when you are actually engaged in the work you are doing!

5.30 PM

With my workday done, I read up on a few topics from my CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accounting) course -, an accounting accreditation that I am aiming to get undertaking with the support of Unilever.

6.30 PM

By now, I have well and truly hit a wall… it’s time to go home. Just before dinner, I manage to take Kobe on a walk around the block a few times while I settle into my favourite Rugby League podcast. I also manage to call up one of my best mates and we catch up on all that has happened over the past few weeks.

7.30 PM

I’m back home, Kobe’s half asleep and mum’s cooked up a storm (nothing beats mum’s cooking). The next hour or so is quality family time, as we talk about our day and have a laugh with the TV on in the background.

9.00 PM

After dinner, it’s relaxation time – I settle into bed and go on a journey through YouTube. It’s been a long day, so I only get through a few videos before I’m ready to call it a day and get some sleep.

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