MILVA FINNEGAN

A Contracts Consultant – I am a contracts manager by title but my work is focused on driving innovative approaches to change how contracts are designed and used. I work with clients to merge legal and business thinking into the entire lifecycle of a contract within an organization.

A Teacher – I’m currently an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University, School of Professional Studies.  I teach various courses in the field of Program Management and Contract Management. I also serve as a curriculum advisor to help drive continuous enhancements to the program.  I have a passion to further the contracts profession and increase the knowledge and skills of every practitioner.

A PhD Student – I am currently pursuing my PhD at the University of Vaasa, in Finland.  My major is in business law and my research is in the field of contract law and contract design. The goal is to develop tools to support contract simplification and visualization to produce well designed contracts that bring value to the business

Work Experience

Prior to founding Karhu LLC, I worked 12 years for the Boeing Company in various roles.  My first four years I worked on the International Contracts & Pricing team.  I performed complex pricing,  drafted and reviewed terms and conditions, and participated in proposal development.  I traveled to several countries as part of the negotiation team and gained in-depth knowledge of international  large scale military acquisitions.

Next opportunity was in US government contracts where I was the F/A-18 training division contract’s team lead.  From there I moved to become a Financial & Planning analyst and learned the financial tracking and reporting responsibilities during contract execution for both commercial and government contracts.  Thereafter, I was selected to be the lead finance integrator in the International Support Systems Division where I rolled up all the divisional monthly financials, did variance analysis and leadership presentation, and developed and integrated the 1, 5, and 10 year Long Range Business Plan.

My next job was as an IT Finance Manager for a team of financial analyst with responsibility for tracking and assuring on budget IT spend through; performance reporting, risk analysis and cross functional collaboration.