Having completed a Chemistry degree, I joined Shell in London on their finance graduate programme. Shell supported me through the ACMA (Chartered Management Accountancy) qualification, and I had the chance to work my way through a few formative Finance roles (covering management & group accounting, planning and forecasting, internal audit, etc) in London, then Aberdeen, before getting an opportunity to take a Business Planning and Economics role overseas in Gabon. It was a great experience with the scope of the role much broader than the job description suggested. I learned a lot being away from a large corporate environment.

I briefly worked for BT in their Regulatory Finance team, supporting Price Control negotiations before returning to Shell in Aberdeen, heading up the Financial Reporting team for a newly formed Regional Business entity. There I had a first taste of Finance functional Transformation – seeking to improve the way in which Finance delivered its services to the business by looking for opportunities to simplify, standardise and automate activities and take out low value add tasks. This led to an assignment in the Hague doing a similar role for Shell’s Global Upstream Business.

After almost a combined 20 years in Shell, I joined the independent Canadian Oil and Gas company, Talisman, UK as Regional Finance Controller. It was such a different environment from Shell at that time. Agile, less consensus building. A lot of change followed as Talisman firstly formed a Joint Venture with China’s Sinopec and then sold its holdings to Spanish Energy company Repsol. As General Manager for Finance and Business Services in the newly formed Repsol-Sinopec UK JV, there were a number of challenging business, financial and fiscal issues to manage.

Since then I’ve enjoyed several years as a CFO for a private equity supported midstream company operating the SAGE pipeline and terminal followed by a CFO for a private Forestry entity (both very different than the roles I’d had before) before joining Spirit Energy as CFO in June last year.

I really enjoy the Company’s value-centric culture.

There are some real challenges as the business looks to maximise economic value from its existing late-life gas producing assets and prepare to develop a substantial Energy Transition business with Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) asset.

As head of the finance & commercial functions, seeing the value that each element of the directorate can bring to make the business successful, whether this is in the area of tax management, business planning, cash management, accounting, commercial negotiations or strategy development is very motivating. The company has a clear strategy and I have a team of people and management team colleagues that I can rely on.

While I trained as an accountant and have undertaken a number of accounting roles, I didn’t ever really think of myself as an accountant. I always saw myself as someone who worked in Finance and wanted to demonstrate the positive impact finance understanding could have on the business I worked for. It was important to me to start my career in industry rather than in practice, although a number of my peers are in similar roles to me having done the opposite.

As a student I imagined I might use my Chemistry degree more significantly but as generic grounding to think systematically it was a good basis for an Accountancy qualification.

I believe the advance of technology through AI, the increasing volatility in markets and the emergence of new businesses and roles makes this inevitable.

The core attributes of an accountant to understand the basis of the transactions and substance of an entity; to reflect these objectively and with insights to users of financial statements; and to protect and manage its assets and liabilities mindful of the risks of the operating environment won’t change in my view. How these activities are undertaken will change. I believe that the demands on accountants today are very different from when I qualified. Analysis and analytics can be achieved so much quicker and substantially now with AI, providing much more space for insight and decision making support.

Lock down demonstrated how effective remote working could be through use of technology. Personally I enjoyed the flexibility it provided and believe that while companies may now have different views on hybrid working, that a balanced approach can be really valuable.

At Spirit Energy, staff have an opportunity to work from home up to 2 days a week outside of two set core days. I think this works well, so long as its not abused.

Conversely, I also believe that face to face time can’t be beaten in particular in starting a new role and getting established. Nothing beats being present as part of a team to pick up what might be going on!

My advice is be clear on what is fundamentally important for you in your next job. Look for the roles that you really want to do for the companies that you want to work for rather than the roles you could do.

Sometimes more money is important but job content and development opportunities are really important if you are looking to progress your career in the longer term. Also consider a mentor as a sounding board to help determine what opportunities might fit best.

Your life won’t turn out how you expect. But you’ll be okay! You can do more than you think. Live life doing not waiting for something to happen.

I’d love to support my company to become a key business in the UK’s Energy Transition. I really enjoy working at the moment but when I stop, I’d like to travel again.

An active family life has always been critical to me outside of work. Now the kids have left home and are making their way in the world, I get enormous satisfaction in catching up with them when we can.

I have just moved back into Town from the shire and am really enjoying getting the new place feeling like home with my partner.

Since the early 80’s I’ve been a big fan of Heavy Metal rock music and have seen a number of the bands I love (Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Deep Purple, etc) live over the years. I still enjoy collecting and playing LP records although the resurgence in vinyl makes this an increasingly expensive hobby.