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Confirmed Guests
Jim Berry - MBA Course Director, UCL
Jim is the MBA Course Director for UCL. Having taught many successful professionals, Jim understands the attributes required to succeed both in finance and at Board level generally. Jim will explain the benefits of completing an MBA and will outline the 5 areas to focus your professional development irrespective of whether or not you do complete an MBA.
Jim's story will be released soon.
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Previous Guests
Episode 18 - David Bloom - CFO & Board Member
David David his career at Jeffrey Henry's, a smaller accountancy practice before moving into the corporate finance function at KPMG. After a stint as FD of a listed business in New Zealand, David joined Getty Images, where he assisted the growth of the business. 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 sits on a number of boards and holds interim FD/CFO positions.
Listen to David's story here.
Episode 17 - Joe Sage - CFO, Oakland
Joe started out in Audit before moving into Corporate Finance for 2 years upon completion of a secondment to Australia. He then moved to Inspicio, an acquisitive business where he supported three acquisitions, a sale and de-listing from AIM. He then became FD of SDI Media and went on to spend 7 years at Arts Alliance Media. Upon completion of a successful sale, Joe moved on to CFO at Sweet Inn and is now CFO of Oakland.
Listen to Joe's story here.
Episode 16 - Patrick Dunne - Business Owner, Board Member & Author
Patrick spent 4 years as an Operations Research Analyst at Air Products before completing his MBA at Cranfield School of Management.He then joined 3i Group where he spent 27 years managing investment portfolios. Since leaving 3i, Patrick has written a number of books including the award winning "Boards". He has also founded Boardelta and Warwick in Africa and is the Chair on a number of boards.
Listen to Patrick's story here.
Episode 15 - Jamie Nolan - Tax Manager, Buzzacott LLP
Jamie graduated from Warwick University with a degree in Accounting & Finance. Having found tax to be the most interesting element of his degree, he decided to pursue a role within the Tax space. He joined Buzzacott in 2014 and has progressed to Tax Manager level over the 6 years that he has been with the business.
Listen to Jamie's story here.
Episode 14 - Mark Sinjakli & Noreen Khan - Acquirer & Founder, My Baker
Mark recently acquired the My Baker business from Noreen. Mark started out in audit before moving into restructuring at EY where he spent 3 years. From here, he spent 1.5 years in the RBS restructuring team before joining Zolfo Cooper, later acquired by AlixPartners where he reached Director level before deciding to pursue his entrepreneurial calling. Noreen spent 5 years in Communications at Deutsche Bank, at which point she was inspired to build My Baker.
Listen to the My Baker story here.
Episode 13 - Andrew Ring - CFO, Hitachi Capital
Andrew graduated from Cambridge with a degree in Natural Sciences before embarking upon his training contract with KPMG. After 3 years in their Insurance audit team and a short stint in Business Recovery, Andrew joined Barclays. Initially in the Group team, he then transferred into Barclays Corporate where he joined the FP&A team. Andrew was ultimately promoted to FD of Barclays Corporate before taking the opportunity to join Hitachi Capital in his first CFO role.
Listen to Andrew's story here.
Episode 12 - Andy Viner - Global Head of Media, BDO
Andy began his career at KPMG where he specialised in marketing and other media clients. Having returned from a secondment to Wellington, he undertook a role in operational audit with Cable & Wireless. Realising this wasn't right for him, he joined Arthur Andersen's corporate finance team where he spent 3 years and left a couple of years prior to the Enron scandal. Andy then joined BDO where he has worked his way up to Partner and now heads up the Media team internationally.
Listen to Andy's story here.
Episode 11 - Karen Sands - Finance Transformation Director
Karen was the youngest ever AAT at 18 and the youngest ever ACA at 20, having been taken on by Critchleys straight out of school at 16. After 5 years here, Karen spent 9 years teaching at BPP followed by 3 years at the ICAEW. This coincided with the introduction of IFRS and Karen ran courses for 80% of the FTSE 350 on the application of this new accounting framework. Since then, Karen has been in the contracting space, undertaking many roles across technical, tranformation, M&A and reporting roles.
Listen to Karen's story here.
Episode 10 - Dan Bolland - Partner, Sia Partners
Dan started out working in non-finance roles before embarking upon the CIMA qualification and securing a Financial Analysis role at Reed. Having qualified Dan moved to HBOS before relocating to London to join Barclays. He operated in a number of pricing and profit optimisation roles before joining KPMG at a senior level in their EPM division. Dan recently joined Sia Partners where he is a Partner.
Listen to Dan's story here.
Episode 9 - Dan Winters - Group FC, Paysafe Group Plc
Dan spent nine years in audit having started out as a school leaver. Upon attaining the ACA, Dan progressed to Audit Manager level before taking the opportunity to move into industry. He joined Paysafe as Group Reporting Manager and received consecutive promotions to Group FC level. As a senior member of the finance team, Dan now sits on the leadership team.
Listen to Dan's story here.
Episode 8 - Josh Rix & Luke Casey - Co-founders, Woodhurst
Josh & Luke attained First class degrees in Business Management and Economics respectively before joining CSC and UBS. Luke spent time at Accenture before they came together at BCS Consulting. Both are CISI and Prince 2 accredited, and having gained a combined 15 years of consultancy experience felt equipped to build their own Financial Services & Cloud based consultancy business, Woodhurst.
Listen to Josh & Luke's story here.
Episode 7 - Gaurav Seth - FD, Listed business
Gaurav graduated from Oxford with a degree in PPE and joined Deloitte as an audit trainee. He completed his ACA before transitioning into the M&A team where he progressed to manager. He then spent 4 years at Tesco in Corporate Finance and Business Partner roles. Gaurav then became Finance and Commercial Director of Serco, the London Cycle Hire Scheme. Most recently, Gaurav was a Divisional FD of Hyve Group, another listed business.
Listen to Gaurav's story here.
Episode 6 - Jo Kanani - CFO, Grayling
Jo undertook an Accounting & Finance degree at university before deciding to pursue the ACCA qualification. After spending a combined 3 years at Hobbs and Fox, Jo joined MBO, where she spent a further 3 years and progressed to Finance Manager level. Upon leaving MBO, Jo accepted a role with Grayling, where she has spent over 20 years, progressing to her current position of CFO.
Listen to Jo's story here.
Episode 5 - Charlotte Li & Olivia Bishop - Co-founders, Toco Swim
Charlotte & Olivia both followed very similar routes on their journey to creating Toco Swim. Both undertook an Accounting & Finance degree at Exeter University before joining an Audit graduate scheme with PwC and BDO respectively. Having gained the ACA, both worked their way up to Audit Manager level. Charlotte also spent some time in Singapore and had a couple of other ventures prior to the creation of Toco Swim.
Listen to Charlotte & Olivia's story here.
Episode 4 - James Taylor - CFO, Yoyo Wallet
Having graduated from Glasgow Univeristy with a degree in Accounting & Finance, James accepted a role with Haines Watts as an Audit Trainee where he attained the CA (ICAS) before moving into Corporate Finance. After a short year at BDO, James joined Barclays shortly after the financial crisis. He then became Head of Decision support at Zapp, who were later acquired by Mastercard. He is currently the CFO of Yoyo Wallet.
Listen to his story here.
Episode 3 - Ellie Worster - Senior Manager, Buzzacott LLP
Ellie joined Crowe Clarke Whitehill straight from school having decided against going to university. She spent 6 years at CCW in the Business Outsourcing team, attaining the ACCA qualification in the process, before taking 8 months out to travel. Upon her return, she joined Buzzacott LLP as an Assistant Manager and over the course of a six year tenure, has progressed to Senior Manager level.
Listen to her story here.
Episode 2 - Ian Daly - CFO (Listed business) & Entrepreneur
Having undertaken a Mechanical Engineering degree at Edinburgh University, Ian decided to pursue a career in accountancy. He trained at Touche Ross (now Deloitte) before spending 10 years at Unipart Group of Companies. After becoming a specialist in the booming mobile phone space, he went on to operate as the CFO of an AIM listed business and build and sell 2 businesses of his own.
Listen to his story here.
Episode 1 - Tom Steabler - Director, "Big Three" Credit Ratings Agency
Tom graduated from LSE with a degree in Accounting & Finance. Having undertaken internships with both UBS in Investment Banking and BDO in Audit, Tom opted to pursue the audit route and gain his ACA qualification. After trying Investment Banking once more with Quayle Munro, Tom decided to move into the Credit Ratings space, where he has worked his way up to Director level.
Listen to his story here.