Paola Sarmiento
About Paola Sarmiento
Paola Sarmiento is the Senior Commercial Finance Manager for Procter & Gamble in Colombia, with extensive experience in finance and marketing roles across Latin America.
Current Title and Role
Paola Sarmiento currently serves as the Senior Commercial Finance Manager for Procter & Gamble in Colombia. She has held this role since 2020 and operates out of the Bogotá D.C. Metropolitan Area. As a Senior Commercial Finance Manager, she is responsible for various financial planning, analysis, and strategy implementation tasks within the company.
Previous Roles at Procter & Gamble
Paola Sarmiento has a long history with Procter & Gamble, having held several key positions before her current role. She was the Pacific Marketing and Trade Funds Comptroller from 2018 to 2020 in Bogotá D.C., Colombia. Prior to that, she was the LA Baby Care Profit Forecaster Manager for 9 months in 2017-2018 based in Panama. Additionally, from 2015 to 2017, she served as LA Home Care Finance Analyst, and from 2014 to 2015 and 2012 to 2014, she was a Financial Analyst for Oral, Power & Home Care and Product Supply Cost Analyst for LA Oral Care respectively, all in Panama.
Career Start and Internships
Paola's career began with Halliburton as a Completion Tools Quality and Development Coordinator in early 2012 for 5 months in Bogotá D.C., Colombia. She also held multiple internships, including a Financial Analyst internship for LA Baby Care at Procter & Gamble in Panama in 2011 and a Business Development Department internship at Industrial Agraria La Palma Limitada Indupalma in Cesar Area, Colombia, also in 2011.
Educational Background
Paola Sarmiento holds a Master's degree in Finance from Tulane University, where she studied from 2017 to 2019. She also has a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from Universidad Industrial de Santander, completed from 2006 to 2011. Her strong educational background has been instrumental in her career development in various financial roles.
Key Initiatives and Projects
Throughout her career, Paola has led significant go-to-market intervention projects for the distributors channel, resulting in double-digit sales growth and increased profits for Procter & Gamble and its customers. She implemented improvements in the pricing process for Colombia, Chile, and Peru, reducing process time for multifunctional partners. Additionally, she identified savings opportunities that were reinvested into the business, improving the customers' Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) metric through thorough customer analysis, planning, and P&L stewardship.