Success in Finance

Joining me today is Lauren Murphy. Lauren is a CA qualified accountant having trained in South Africa before moving to London. During her time in London, Lauren attended an event for entrepreneurs at Google HQ and shared an idea with fellow attendees giving her and her partners the confidence to go ahead with the concept of Adludio. 9 years later, Adludio is an international business serving a number of Bluechip customers. Lauren shares Adludio's journey.

Joining me today is Chris Newman. Chris graduated from the University of Westminster with a degree in Business Studies and decided to pursue the CIMA qualification through his role with London Stock Exchange. He went on to work for Pearl Assurance and Norwich & Peterborough Building Society for the next 8 years before joining Ascential. Here, Chris spent 6 years, progressing to Group Financial Reporting Manager and then project managing the development of a new budgeting & reporting process. He then joined Experian as Head of IT Finance before ultimately progressing to FD. After 10 years at Experian, Chris moved to Fiserv and has now relocated to New York, where he is responsible for Mergers and post acquisition integration. 

Joining me today is John Turner. John started his career in audit at KPMG, having completed a Masters in Political Science at Leiden University. He was involved in the intensive programme offered by KPMG, which involves sitting 14 of the 15 ACA exams within the first 9 months. He talks us through the challenges of that programme alongside the Big 4 culture and dealing with the stresses of busy season. After leaving KPMG, John joined Pepkor, the Holding Company of Poundland and Pepco, as a Group Reporting Accountant, where he spent 2 years managing the cash flow and financial reporting of the business. He then joined RELX, where he remains today as a Financial Reporting Accountant in the Head Office finance team.

Joining me today is Aneliya Vazharova. Aneliya joined the graduate scheme at Cisco straight out of University and, finding her passion for commercial finance, undertook a number of financial analysis and strategic business roles here over her 6 year tenure. She then moved to LexisNexis where she has further pursued commercial finance and now operates as Senior Commercial Finance Manager.

Joining me today is Jim Berry. Jim is the MBA Course Director for University College London. In this role, Jim has the opportunity to work with a number of successful and aspirational professionals, across a variety of industries and roles including finance. This means that he is familiar with the ingredients required for a successful career and he shares details of this in this episode. 

Jim also goes into detail on the key components of the UCL MBA and why focus on each of these areas either via an MBA or through work experience are important for anybody looking to pursue an executive leadership position. The four areas of focus listed below and underpinned by Strategy are crucial to success at executive level:

- Finance

- HR

- Operations

- Marketing

Joining me today is David Bloom. David began his career at Jeffrey Henry's, a smaller accountancy practice before moving into the corporate finance function at KPMG. After spending some time as FD of a listed business in New Zealand, David joined Getty Images, where he assisted with the growth of the business and was responsible for the integration of acquisitions. Here, he won the Accountancy Age Accountant of the Year award. Since leaving Getty, David set up a "Posh Kebabs" restaurant chain called Flamin' Nora, which was successful for a while, and then returned to traditional FD/CFO roles. He currently advises on a number of boards and has had a variety of interim FD/CFO positions.

Joining me today is Joe Sage. Joe started out in audit before transitioning into Corporate Finance, where he worked on a number of transactions. This led him nicely into his Group Finance Manager role with Inspicio, an acquisitive business, where he applied his skillset to 3 acquisitions before assisting with Inspicio’s sale to 3i. This process also involved de-listing from AIM. Following this transaction, Joe opted to undertake his first FD role with SDI Media. After taking time out to travel around Asia, Joe returned to a CFO role with Arts Alliance Media where he spent over 7 years assisting in the transition of a loss making business into a profitable international group, concluding with a sale to a Chinese business. Since then, Joe spent a brief spell as CFO of Sweet Inn, before becoming CFO of Oakland where he works currently.

Joining me today is Noreen Khan & Mark Sinjakli. Both give us a summary of their pre My Baker careers, with Noreen describing her journey through Communications at Deutsche Bank and Mark detailing his time in Restructuring. They then talk through the challenges of founding and running your own business, as well as the My Baker story and how Mark came to buy the business from Noreen.

Joining me this week is Andrew Ring. Andrew is currently CFO at Hitachi Capital. Having graduated from Cambridge with a Natural Sciences degree, he began his career with KPMG within insurance audit. After a brief stint in restructuring, Andrew moved to Barclays where he spent 8 years across a number of reporting and commercial roles, ultimately rising to FD of Barclays Corporate. At this point, he chose to move to Hitachi where he undertook his first CFO role and has spent the last 4 years.

Joining me today is Andy Viner. Andy started his career in audit with KPMG, which included a secondment to Wellington in New Zealand. Upon returning to the UK, Andy took the opportunity to join Cable & Wireless in their Internal Audit function. Having worked out pretty quickly this wasn’t for him, he moved back into practice with Arthur Andersen in their Corporate Finance team. 3 years later, he joined BDO where he has progressed to Global Head of Media. Andy has some really useful insights to share and for anybody considering aiming for the top within practice, this will be a great listen.

Joining me this week is Karen Sands. Karen was the youngest ever AAT at 18 and the youngest ever ACA at 20, before going on to complete the CTA. Karen spent 12 years teaching which spanned the introduction of IFRS and gave her the opportunity to train 80% of the FTSE 350 Finance teams on its application. Upon moving back into industry, she established herself as a contractor, meaning that she has been involved in a number of interesting roles including:

- Just Eat - M&A Project Consultant - following the acquisitions of Skip the Dishes and Hungry House
- AB InBev - Head of Finance - accounting for and implementing the UKs biggest ever acquisition (SAB Miller)
- Nationwide - IFRS 9 technical lead - establishing industry benchmark standards

Today, Karen is Finance Transformation Director at Perspectum.

Joining me today is Dan Bolland. Dan is currently a Partner at Sia Partners, having undertaken a varied career underpinned by driving improvements in process and performance. He has predominantly worked in the Financial Services space, undertaking pricing and profitability focused roles at HBOS, Northern Rock and Barclays before transitioning into more consultative roles at KPMG and now Sia. Dan has some great advice to share and articulates his points through some excellent analogies.

Joining me today is Dan Winters. Dan is currently Group FC at Paysafe Group Plc. He began his career in audit as a school leaver and worked his way up to Audit Manager over 9 years within the Consumer Markets space. Dan then joined Paysafe where he has spent the last 3 years, progressing to become part of the senior management team. Dan touches upon the benefit of a foundation in audit, the challenges of the ACA and dispels some common misconceptions pertaining to PE-backed businesses.

Joining me this week is Josh Rix & Luke Casey, co-founders of Woodhurst. Something slightly different this episode as Josh & Luke share their journey through the Management Consultancy space. They describe exactly how they came to specialise in Financial Services, before ultimately setting up Woodhurst. We discuss the merits of a year in industry, the grounding a finance qualification can give you for a career in consulting and the drivers behind the success of Woodhurst.

Joining me this week is Gaurav Seth. Gaurav graduated from Oxford with a degree in PPE and embarked upon the ACA having recognised it as a leading foundation to the world of finance. Having spent 6 years at Deloitte within audit and M&A, Gaurav moves to Tesco where he worked in the Corporate Finance team and then as a business partner with a procurement focus. After 4 years, he then transitioned into a Commercial FD role with Serco, the business behind “Boris Bikes”, where he spent an additional 4 years. Most recently, Gaurav operated as Finance Director of another listed business in the Hyve Group.

Joining me today is Jo Kanani. Jo began her career with the aspiration of becoming a Management Accountant, believing that was her ceiling and she would never surpass that level. Today, she is the CFO of Grayling, an international communications agency. She shares the story of her journey and how the support of those around her and an affable personality, coupled with hard work and dedication, has enabled her to achieve what she has in her career.

Joining me today are sisters Charlotte & Olivia, co-founders of Toco Swim. They talk us through their audit careers at PwC and BDO and how they developed a strong foundation in finance which equipped them with the skills and initiative to set up their own business. They touch upon international secondments, the challenges of running your own business and the advice that they would give to anybody setting up on their own. 

Joining me this week is James Taylor. James began his career in audit and accounts at Haines Watts, spending some time in corporate finance before pursuing various commercial roles in financial institutions and the mobile payment solutions space. He is going to talk us through the proactive career decisions that he made as well as the experiences that equipped him to become the strategic CFO that he is today.

Joining me this week is Ellie Worster, Senior Manager in the Business Outsourcing team at Buzzacott LLP. She talks us through her time in practice at CCW and Buzzacott LLP and how she has progressed to Senior Manager level. She addresses the benefits of the school leaver scheme and having longevity within a business.

Joining me this week is Ian Daly, CFO, entrepreneur and businessman. Ian has achieved a great deal in his career including: - Growing and selling 2 multi-million pound businesses - Administrating a business before buying and building it into a successful profit generating operation - Being part of the team that developed and took to market the concept of pay as you go mobile phones - Operating as CFO of a listed business He has some great insights to share and a lot to say around the importance of failing in order to ultimately become a success.

Joining me today is Tom Steabler, currently a Director at one of the “Big Three” credit ratings agencies. He talks us through his career to date including his experiences within audit, investment banking and now the credit ratings space.