Success in Finance

Joining me today is Rob Parker. Rob started out in audit with EY on what would now be recognised as a “school leaver scheme” but in Rob’s era was reasonably uncommon. After completing the ACA, he moved into industry with Volkswagen group, where he spent over 10 years with Volkswagen and Audi in operational roles before taking on an FD position with Audi. Rob then took on a couple of shorter term r...

Joining me today is Charlie Heald. Charlie started his career with KPMG, where he spent 3 years during his ACA qualification, before transitioning into something more commercial as a Finance Analyst with Sky. Over 4.5 years, Charlie progressed to FC level before moving across to Softcat. Charlie spent almost 9 years with Softcat, joining the business shortly after an IPO and assisting them in grow...

Joining me today is Azmina Airi. Azmina started out her career with PwC, where she gained the ACA before spending 2 years with Halliburton in Internal Audit. Azmina then moved to Sky as a Senior Analyst, where she spent 8 years, progressing to FC level. Dow Jones then approached Azmina about an EMEA FD role. She progressed to VP level with Dow Jones before accepting the opportunity to join Colt as...

Joining me today is Chris McQuaid. Chris started his career as an Accounting Assistant with British Heart Foundation before joining Landor as a Credit Controller. He then spent 6 years with Cohn & Wolfe, progressing to Divisional Accountant level before moving to Carat where he became Finance Manager. Chris has spent a number of years within the Dentsu group, spanning commercial finance, R2R,...

Joining me today is Ali Greatbatch. Ali started his career in practice with Grant Thornton, before landing at Fujitsu where he held international roles in Singapore and Thailand. He then moved to Dubai with Aegion before relocating back to Europe, as Director of Accounting & Compliance with Walgreens Boots Alliance. Ali then returned to the UK, undertaking an interim role with Just Eat before...

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, oper...

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...

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 decidi...

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 Investmen...

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, bef...

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...

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...

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 &amp...

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...

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 numbe...

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 num...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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 Ladbroke...

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 sea...

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 a...

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...

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...