My leadership and business journey started several years before my finance pathway when I began working with a global fast food chain at 15. I quickly progressed to manager and this was, significantly, my first experience of managing and leading others, business excellence and hospitality – all of which remains very relevant to me today. My finance journey then began at 19 upon commencing an HND in Accounting.

After that…

• Accounts Payable with an Oil & Gas sector drilling contractor
• Finance Manager with a not-for-profit in the Forestry Sector
• Finance Manager and latterly Business Development Manager in the charitable sector
• Group Financial Controller in a privately owned and rapidly growing SME in the Oil & Gas sector
• Financial Controller in a plc (Executive Post Grad in Financial Strategy at Oxford)
• Planning & Performance Manager and latterly Project Manager with an Oil & Gas operator
• Lead Improvement Performance and Programme Manager with another Oil & Gas operator
• Finance Projects Manager and Group Treasury & AP Shared Services Manager with a FMCG and hospitality plc
• Finance Transformation Manager with the UK’s largest leasing company

Buried in the above roles is a substantial track record in major transformation, change management and risk management. I have led large strategic projects ranging from organisational/operating model redesign, digital transformation, behavioural and cultural change programmes, financial restructures and M&A.

There have been fabulous tangents - in one of the most rewarding assignments of my career, I led a major offshore safety transformation project for two years, spending many many months working offshore as part of that. I also led the design and implementation of the ‘management of change’ risk management framework for the safe transfer of operations (now an expert in CHIS7!) between a mid-tier O&G operator and an O&G ‘major’. I’ve also done tons of L&D, coaching, facilitation at all levels of organisations, across disciplines and in multiple sectors.

In parallel with – and in some cases as part of - the above roles, I have continued to have active involvement in hospitality and have c.15 years of work experience in the sector.

I hold FCCA, PGDipFS from University of Oxford and CertHE (Psych) from OU.

Walking into a place that I want to step through the door and be in. I am happiest when working with fantastic people that I can relate to and respect – where individual and collective behaviours and values are aligned with mine and where technical ability and contribution is deeply valued.

I love to work with people who I quietly feel humbled by – people with such depth and breadth in both their character, expertise and contribution that they inspire me to keep working hard to becoming the very best person and business professional that I can be. If those things are true, everything else flows.

There have been ups and downs on the journey to now. I haven’t always been in places and with people and cultures that I am comfortable being amongst and I feel deeply grateful that, in both my employment and NED role, I currently find myself surrounded by incredible people.

I only did the HND in Accounting because my first and second choices - Law and IT - were not available at the local college at that time (shows how old I am that IT wasn’t even an option!).

I think it has already changed a lot in progressive businesses and will continue to change. Digital transformation is making traditional ‘accountant’ roles largely obsolete. I see the development pathways as still having relevance as these are core to the governance and control which fundamentally underpin the entire global finance machine but I think the value and relevance of accountants as was is fading fast.

I think ACCA have led the pack in anticipating and responding to this from a professional development perspective and their growing global presence stands testament to the progressive and enduring relevance of their proposition.

I think that how others are thinking, feeling and coping is now a much bigger part of the conversation in the workplace. And I think that people are far more conscious of what matters most to them – and therefore more attuned to and protective of their work/life balance.

Above all – and I cannot stress this strongly enough – understand your truths. What is your life purpose? What serves your joy, contentment and happiness? If vanilla is your gig, know that and honour that – don’t go stirring up your world and then create a world of regret. Conversely, if you want to disrupt your trajectory, make sure you’ve taken time to consider your resilience and recovery plan, should it be needed – but do it.

DO flush out your thinking and understand why you’re in this space. Take lots and lots of conversations with a range of people. Take your time and take all things on balance. I have been a dyed in the wool finance professional – I have also held wide ranging and varied roles across industries. Being a finance/business professional doesn’t have to be vanilla or binary – and skills are very transferable.

• Make it your mission to find insightful and sincere mentors and foster those relationships for life.

Also…

• Explore. Be far FAR more deliberate and active about knocking on doors and developing connections with a wide range of supportive and warm natured people who have valuable insights to share and can inform your thinking. Recognise that this won’t come easy due to your shyness but trust that this is a skillset and that you can and will learn through trial and error so don’t let your shyness stop you and do go gently on yourself – it’s ok to bumble, stumble, pick yourself up, dust yourself down and then try again.
• Learn and pay attention to how others think and act, their underlying motivations and values, never underestimate how different they can be to me at the most fundamental level. Do not underestimate the potential implications of those differences – but also do not overestimate them. Not everything in life needs a reaction or attention. Many things can just be walked by – and difficult people can often just be walked by.
• You can - if you’re lucky enough to live in a western democracy during ‘peace’ time - largely choose what and who you are amongst. You will have more or less immediate influence on this at any given time but you do ultimately own your own experiences, so be discerning and hold to that discernment in all circumstances.
• You will at times:
• • be punished for using your voice – use it anyway
  • be punished for holding to your professional ethics and integrity and your personal values – do it anyway
  • be subjected to bruising misogyny – yuck, keep going
  • be impacted by how other people act out their inner worlds – be watchful and aware of this, never internalise it

So so much! Continue with major transformation assignments, take executive leadership roles, expand my NED portfolio, create a game-changing and commercially successful entrepreneurial start up with a friend, work with select peers/friends in establishing a collaborative consultancy business with a call-off model, create an end-to-end business services solution model for SMEs.

Then, qualify as a psychologist or CBT practitioner (both?) so that I can locum with the NHS and spend 6 months at a time in different locations across the UK with my future dogs. Then finally, I would like to return to the third sector in NED/C-suite roles so that my professional swan song is hallmarked by giving something back to UK society in a more holistic way. There’s time yet for all of this, right?! 😂

Downtime and being outside is hugely important to my resilience and recovery. Work can be very intense on the thinking and logic elements of my cognitive functioning – and I have learned that when I finish my working day/week/month/project etc, my head will initially be swimming with thoughts, my thinking will be on all cylinders and very intense.

Breaking that intensity is important to my recovery – so that my brain is recovered and resourced to come back up again and be ready for the next sprint of demands. So I consciously trigger ‘circuit breakers’ into my daily life. I’ll sit outside for long periods in stillness with a huge mug of tea, listening to birdsong, wind in trees, feeling of cool air on my face etc. I’ll go to the gym. I’ll spend time with loved ones. I’ll immerse in movies, books etc. I’ll monitor my thought patterns and divert them to give my brain a break.

I’ve got some achy bits at the moment that are preventing me from being on the mountains as I’d like – but the ultimate in escape for me is multi-day/week adventures involving wild camping and just surviving with what you are carrying and what’s available around you. I like wild.

A lot of people see me as quite outgoing and adventurous – but I actually prefer a quiet settled life and dislike challenge, change and disruption 😂 I’m fairly convinced that my expertise in managing big complex and challenging change is borne out of an underlying drive to try and bring calmness to chaos so that we can all get on with a quiet gentle life (never happening!).