Maria Walters - CFO, Transformation & Corporate Services
DELIVERING OUTCOMES IN FINANCE LEADERSHIP, BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION, AND CORPORATE SERVICES
Maria is a transformational Chief Financial Officer and corporate services executive who helps boards, CEOs, and business owners translate strategy into operational outcomes, strengthen governance, improve performance, and lead organisations through growth, turnaround, and change.
With experience spanning finance, risk, governance, technology, procurement, supply chain, human resources, sustainability, and enterprise transformation, Maria brings a rare combination of commercial discipline, operational leadership, and people-focused execution. She has successfully led organisations through periods of rapid growth, financial recovery, organisational restructuring, and system transformation across both private-sector and government environments.
Areas of expertise
Financial leadership & business performance: Aligning financial strategy with business objectives, improving reporting, strengthening controls, and supporting confident executive decision-making.
Transformation & organisational change: Leading restructures, enterprise-wide change initiatives, finance transformation, system implementations, and operating model redesign programs.
Governance, risk & compliance: Strengthening governance frameworks, enterprise risk management, internal controls, audit readiness, fraud prevention, and regulatory compliance.
Corporate services leadership: Providing executive oversight across finance, procurement, supply chain, technology, human resources, insurance, communications, analytics, and business services functions.
Commercial strategy & stakeholder engagement: Partnering with boards, executives, government stakeholders, investors, customers, and suppliers to support strategic outcomes and long-term value creation.
Proven Track Record
Business turnaround leadership: Successfully led the turnaround of a mid-market energy retailer, helping transform a $121.3 million loss into an $8.5 million profit within 18 months, with profits subsequently increasing to $16.9 million.
Growth and scaling expertise: Supported turnover growth from approximately $300 million to more than $500 million while leading large finance and corporate services teams across complex multi-entity organisations.
Enterprise transformation: Delivered significant restructures, finance-system implementations, reporting automation, process redesign, and operational improvement initiatives across public and private sector organisations.
Governance and control enhancement: Established robust governance frameworks, fraud-detection capabilities, board-management systems, reporting disciplines, and audit-ready control environments that delivered clean audit outcomes.
People and leadership focus: Built and developed high-performing teams, strengthened organisational capability, improved engagement and retention outcomes, and created sustainable operating frameworks supporting long-term growth.
Approach
Maria combines commercial insight, operational discipline, and collaborative leadership to help organisations navigate complexity and achieve sustainable outcomes. She is known for identifying root causes rather than symptoms, building trusted relationships from board level to frontline teams, and delivering practical solutions that balance financial performance, governance, stakeholder expectations, and long-term business success.
Her approach is grounded in transparency, accountability, and a commitment to developing capable teams and resilient organisations. Whether supporting growth, transformation, governance improvement, or financial turnaround, Maria focuses on creating lasting value for businesses and their stakeholders.
