Hospira

Hospira is a specialty pharmaceutical and medication delivery company launched from the core global hospital products business of Abbott Laboratories. Bringing proven leadership and a nearly 70-year track record of producing high-quality products, Hospira provides a breadth of technology solutions that help improve the safety and effectiveness of patient care.

Niels started with Hospira in November 2006. Due to the departure of the former controller and pending the recruitment and start of the new controller there was an urgent need to have the EMEA controller role filled in on a temporary basis. During the three months Niels worked as interim controller for the EMEA region he was responsible for the daily management of the shared service centre and its staff, 10 people, from which 4 direct reports.

During this assignment he recruited 3 additional colleagues using both Hospira and his own network. He addressed bottlenecks in the EMEA finance department and provided useful recommendations for improvements in operational efficiency.

Niels was responsible for the legal entities in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, France, Belgium and Italy. He managed successfully to work on pending audit queries for several entities. He liaised with (local) auditors and tax advisors in order to file financial statements and returns in time. Dealing with these matters Niels showed himself to be a very competent and trustworthy interim-manager.

He furthermore proved himself to be hands-on and capable of keeping the motivation of his team at a high level, even when the pressure was high during year end audit. With tight deadlines and demanding requests from overseas, Niels knows how to set priorities and how to maintain the quality, given the constraint of time. Furthermore, Niels has the ability to comprehend and manage complex operational structures in the minimum of time allowing him to be effective from the beginning of his assignment. He is also willing to put the extra hours in to get the job done.

I have no hesitation recommending Niels Batstra for any finance assignment.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. Stephen Waters ACCA

Regional Finance Director EMEA
Hospira Healthcare BV
Hoofddorp, February 7th, 2007

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