I started my career as an audit trainee in EY’s Glasgow office.  It was a great introduction to the basics of finance and to different industries where I worked with insurance companies, investment trusts, manufacturers and [. ]. 

On qualifying I moved to EY’s Sydney office continuing in audit but focused on life insurance businesses.  Sydney is an amazing city and the team there were very much work hard and play hard so the weeks involved long hours but weekends were for enjoying yourself.  I was fortunate to be there when EY were looking at changing its approach to audits and moving away from the traditional transactional based approach to a more process based and looking at the wider business and not just finance.  The client I worked on was a global pilot so the team were basically rewriting how audits should be done.  I learned a huge amount about how to analyse businesses at that time.

After two years I came back to EY Aberdeen and become part of the Corporate Finance team working on a wide range of transactions.

After 10 years at EY I thought the time was right to take what I’d learnt and go into industry so I got my first CFO role in a start-up where the business was attempting to raise US$110 million to build well intervention vessels.  I thought that having 10 years experience with one of the big 4 would prepare me for life in a start-up.  However, it was a big change from being an advisor to being responsible for making decisions and living with the results.  It was a real eye opener and great learning experience.

Unfortunately following 9/11 the founders pulled out.  However, I used the experience I gained there to get involved in turnarounds working with various business including a landfill site, construction company and inspection business.  I then returned to practice with AAB’s Corporate Finance team.

From AAB I joined Chess Group as Group FD helping the business raise funds to extend the property portfolio and navigate through the financial crisis. It was interesting sitting in meetings at that time with the banks being quizzed on the Group’s credit rating when there was doubt over the banks position and if they would be able to provide the cash for the loan.  In addition managed the MBO of one the subsidiaries and the acquisition of a complimentary business in the Central Belt. 

I then moved to Peterson SBS as FD where I got exposure to supporting a multi location business and supporting he parent company based in The Netherlands. Implementing a new ERP system, acquiring a procurement business and development our investment assessment process to ensure that investment decisions were consistent and based on our strategic goals.

Having spent over 20 years as an employee I want to test myself as an owner and with my business partner we bought three businesses in the space of 15 months.  Over the next 7 years with Plant shifters and Surelift I learnt to drive a forklift, draw lift plans and generally be amazed how the team could move enormous pieces of industrial kit into what seemed be impossibly small spaces.  During the time the team moved ROV systems, Control Modules, BOPs, Bathroom pods at TECA and even Cinderella’s Carriage.  Having to deal with all aspects of the business and not just the finance and commercial side was a big change especially as the North East had two oil downturns during that time which presented as many opportunities as challenges. 

After selling one of the businesses and having to close the other I joined Empowered by Cloud helping grow the business from turnover over £180k to over £1m in four years.  Not long after I joined COVID hit and we were faced with the first lockdown.  This was a massive opportunity as companies realized they had to move to cloud software so they could access information from anywhere and accepted that they had to deal with providers who couldn’t visit sites. 

At the time I viewed the business reaction as similar to the financial crisis or a oil price crash so used that experience to help our clients manage through lockdown.  As the business grew we developed an outsourced finance function together with providing virtual FD services.  Rather than competing with traditional accounting firms we focused on giving companies a comprehensive finance department without the full time cost of hiring people. 

Northern Accountants acquired Empowered in 2024 and I have helped them expand the advisory services offering and help train the client managers to move away from preparing the numbers to telling the story of the numbers.

I enjoy helping clients solve problems.  When you are constantly fighting fires it is sometimes difficult to see what you need to do.  I understand this from running my own businesses and can help owners take the step back and give that bit of clarity on what the priorities are for the business.

I also like the variety both in terms of the work and the different types of businesses.

Like a lot kids I wanted to be a professional sportsman either playing golf or football.  However, I quickly realized that my talent didn’t match the ambition so would have to find an alternative. 

When I was about 16 I went to a careers fair and came across the ICAS stand.  I was good at maths and analytics so thought that it might be something I could do.  However, the thing that sold it to me what that the CA qualification was recognised everywhere and would allow me to travel the world.  From that point on I wanted to be an accountant as thought it would be my key to travelling the world which it has allowed me to do.

Accountants will still be required to deliver similar services.  However, with the speed of development of AI and cloud software the way that the services are delivered will change massively.  For example, when I started my career we didn’t have email, no mobile phones and excel was basic and we didn’t really use it that often – I remember manually writing out extended trial balances on A3 paper.  As technology grew a lot of the manual tasks have been removed and the amount of work that could be done increased.  This trend will continue and the range of tasks that technology will do will.

With AI I would expect a lot of the data entry work to be removed, compliance work will become more streamlined and even the analysis of numbers will be quicker.  This shift is why you see a lot of accountancy firms pushing into advisory to offset this shift.  Clients will expect accountants to help them with the wider business (more strategic, forward looking, sounding board) and less about just producing numbers.  This will mean that business will depend more on relationships and the ability to translate the numbers and impact on the business into plain English will be at a premium.

Although I do worry that with technology doing more and more tasks how the next generation will learn the basics and develop their experience.

The main things that it changed were in terms of increased flexibility and that working from home can be effective. In addition I see more opportunities for working throughout the UK without needing to travel to sites that we would have done previously. The improvements to cloud based software and video conferencing has meant that clients are more receptive to working with advisors in different parts of the country or even overseas compared to pre-COVID when they would generally want a local provider.  It has also opened up the ability for small businesses to recruit talent outwith the normal commuter area.

Look to do things that interest and challenge you.  The first few months in any new job are a mixture of excitement and apprehension but is also the best time to learn more about the business and look for potential improvements.

The hard work is worth it the more experience you gain the easier it gets. 

I am still ambitious and have a few things I want to achieve.

At a professional level the main two are:

• Working closely with a number of owner managers to help them scale their business and prepare for an exit.  I often talk about giving owners the option to sell so that they are more in control of the timing of the exit rather than have it forced upon them.
• Develop a course to help financial controllers and management accountants take the next step to becoming a FD / CFO.  This is something that we are working on with the managers at Northern Accountants.

Personally I’d like to travel more with a visit to Machu Picchu and Cuba high on the list.  I’d also like to get my golf handicap back to single figures.

Where possible  like to play sport to relax I find that it helps we switch off from the day to day pressures whether that is playing golf, football or running although I don’t do these as much as I would like to.  I more often found at the side of the football pitch helping with my son’s football team.

When I was 7, I once won a wagon wheel in a limbo dancing competition at Blackpool tower. That’s definitely not something I could repeat now as nowhere near as flexible.