Episodes
Joining me today is Gary Hanson. Gary started out his career with Winney Murray, who were then what we would class as a "Big 4" firm today (although there were 5 of them). He then went onto Binder Hamlyn and EY, progressing to Senior Manager level, before making the move to BDO, where he spent 34 years, many of which as Partner. During his time as Partner, Gary built out the Cambridge office, operated as a point of liaison between the UK and US and sat on the Partnership Council.
Published 11/04/21
Published 10/28/21
Joining me today is Terry Reynolds. Terry began his career straight out of school, choosing to dive directly into the world of law through a Legal Cashier Assistant role with Linklaters. Terry has remained in the legal space every since and over the last 10.5 years progressed to Assistant Financial Analyst with Linklaters before transitioning to RPC. With RPC, he has developed from Finance Analyst to Senior Finance Practice Manager over 6.5 years, obtaining the CIMA qualification along the way.
Published 10/28/21
Joining me today is Elaine Darby. Elaine graduated from Southampton University with a degree in English and decided to join PwC's grad scheme. Having qualified as an ACA with PwC, Elaine moved on to a Consultancy role at Arthur Andersen before becoming a Senior Consultant at KPMG and then joining Deloitte. She spent 6 years at Deloitte, progressing to Senior Manager level, before ultimately deciding to make the move into teaching. After 3 years as a BPP tutor, Elaine became a Lecturer in...
Published 10/21/21
Joining me today is Amit Lakhani. After graduating from UCL with a degree in Economics & Statistics, Amit explored a few potential career opportunities, with roles as Investment Assistant at Thomas Miller and then Data Analyst at Geonomic and Arriva Bus respectively. Having settled on Data Analytics, Amit moved to The Zeal Group, where he has spent the last 4.5 years progressing from Investment & Data Strategy Analyst to Head of Corporate Development and now Investment Director. Amit...
Published 10/14/21
Joining me today is Ibrar Raja. Ibrar joined Deloitte having completed a degree in Management & Systems. He also spent some time at Wilson Wright & Co, a smaller firm, before moving into industry with TJX Europe. Here, he undertook roles as a Senior Internal Auditor and European Corporate Accounting Manager before moving to Telecity Group. At Telecity Group, Ibrar first operated as FC, before taking on a role as FD of part of the group. Since leaving Telecity Group, Ibrar went on to a...
Published 10/07/21
Joining me today is Mat Steer. Mat joined PwC on their Consulting & Audit split scheme, having graduated from Warwick with a degree in Politics with French. During his time at PwC, Mat spent time both in audit and consulting, as well as undertaking a client secondment. After joining PwC's New Law team and being a key part of the team's growth, Mat recently moved on to Deloitte as an Associate Director where he remains in the New Law sphere. 
Published 09/30/21
Joining me today is Catherine Marks. Catherine joined Deloitte having undertaken a degree in Management with German at Nottingham University. After 7 years at Deloitte, including stints in Birmingham, London and Zurich across audit, reorganisation services and Transaction Services, Catherine joined RBS. Here, she spent a further 6 years in Global Restructuring and Head of Complex Disposal Support (in-house M&A) before FP&A and Investor Relations roles at Viacom and NewDay. Today,...
Published 09/23/21
Joining me today is Daniel Pembroke. Daniel joined Macfarlanes straight out of school and transitioned into a Credit Controller role as the concept of asking clients to pay money that they owed developed. After 8 years at Macfarlanes, Daniel joined Ince & Co via a brief stint at HFW. He went on to spend almost 20 years at Ince & Co, progressing through Revenue management and into a BD & Pricing role. Upon becoming Head of Pricing, Daniel was then presented with the opportunity to...
Published 03/11/21
Joining me today is Zoe Cooke. Zoe graduated from LSE with a degree in Government and a Masters in Political Science. She decided to join GroupOn who were the fastest growing company ever at the time and on the verge of IPO as a Junior Finance Manager. Over her 5.5 years here, Zoe spent 2 years in Switzerland and completed the CIMA qualification. When the opportunity to join OglivyOne Worldwide as a Financial Analyst arose, Zoe took it and spent 3 years here, progressing to Commercial...
Published 03/04/21
Joining me today is Billy Green. Billy graduated with a degree from Oxford in English before embarking upon a career in audit with PwC. Over his 10 years with PwC, Billy specialised in the audit of Tech and Media clients, with a 3 year stint in LA seeing him develop a strong understanding of US GAAP, SOX and SEC guidelines. Having left PwC as a Senior Manager, Billy has gone on to work for a number of NASDAQ and NYSE listed businesses in senior finance positions. Billy is currently Finance...
Published 02/25/21
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. You can also watch this interview on...
Published 02/18/21
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...
Published 02/11/21
Joining me today is Louis Tuttle. Louis graduated from King's College London with a degree in Geography. He decided to pursue the ACA as an Audit Trainee within BDO's Consumer Markets team. He spent 3.5 years at BDO, including a secondment to Brisbane, Australia, and some time out to travel afterwards. He joined Busaba, initially as a Finance Manager, and was promoted to Group Financial Controller. After 2.5 years here, he decided to return to Australia permanently. Since returning to...
Published 02/04/21
Joining me today is Laura Crespi. Laura graduated with a degree in Biochemistry from Nottingham before joining Deloitte as an Audit Trainee. She stayed at Deloitte until Audit Manager level and undertook a secondment to the IFRS centre of excellence, where she honed her technical accounting knowledge. Having completed her secondment, the opportunity to join RELX’s group accounting function arose, so she joined as a Senior Project Accountant. After progressing to Group Financial Reporting...
Published 01/28/21
Joining me today is Sam Bordbar. Sam completed a Masters in Business from Kent before joining DDB, part of the Omnicom group in a Commercial Analyst role. He then followed his boss over to Hogarth, part of the WPP group, giving him exposure to 2 of the largest advertising groups in the world. Sam never quite settled at Hogarth and so moved on to Teneo as a Finance Operations Manager. He has spent the last 7 years at Teneo, during which he has progressed his responsibilities and been involved...
Published 01/21/21
Joining me today is Sam Allanson. Having graduated from Cambridge with a Law degree, Sam chose to pursue a finance career, starting out as a Graduate Finance Analyst at Kingfisher. He undertook a number of commercial roles during his 8 years with Kingfisher, before moving to Brakes as Head of FP&A and then Sky where he spent 4 years to Senior Finance Manager level. In 2017, Sam joined Ladbrokes as Head of Commercial Finance and was involved in their takeover by GVC. Since the acquisition...
Published 01/14/21
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...
Published 11/05/20
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. You can also watch recent interviews on my YouTube channel. www.successinfinance.co.uk
Published 10/29/20
Joining me today is Steve Whiting. Steve is currently FD at Grayling. He talks us through gaining the ACA at a smaller firm and the benefits of exposure to tax, bookkeeping and accounts preparation as well as audit, which gave him a solid grounding when joining a larger practice and later moving into industry. He also describes his progression from Finance Analyst to FD over his three year tenure at Grayling. You can see recent video interviews on my YouTube channel. www.successinfinance.co.uk
Published 10/26/20
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...
Published 10/15/20
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 busines 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...
Published 10/08/20
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...
Published 10/01/20
Joining me today is Patrick Dunne. Patrick spent 4 years at Air Products before studying for his MBA at Cranfield School of Management. He then joined 3i where he spent 27 years in Private Equity managing a number of different portfolios and sitting on many Boards. With this experience behind him, Patrick has gone on to found his own Board Advisory business, Boardelta, as well as Warwick in Africa. He also operates as Chair for ESSA, EY Foundation and the Chartered Management Institute....
Published 09/24/20
Joining me this week is Jamie Nolan. Jamie joined Buzzacott LLP straight out of University following his degree in Accounting & Finance from the University of Warwick. During his time at Buzzacott, Jamie has attained the CTA qualification and has progressed rapidly to Tax Manager level. Jamie details the opportunities available through a career in tax as well as the day to day nature of the role and the requisite problem solving nature.  You can also visit my YouTube channel for recent...
Published 09/17/20