I have worked across many sectors allowing me to be sector agnostic, and in fact I frequently see trends and consistencies across very different businesses, (ask me about the similarity between toothpaste and private jet businesses one day), meaning I am confident that I can apply my logic to assess the key drivers and assumptions of a business, thereby being able to understand the business model and evaluate feasibility. 

I am precise by nature and, for my sins, I enjoy building financial models but I also combine this with a trust of intuition, as we can often have a good hunch of the result before having to delve into an all singing and dancing perfect excel model. The amount times a top-down, back of an envelope (admittedly, an A4 envelope) budget meets the bottom-up detailed exercise is uncanny. I also apply my skills to analyse the financials of other entities from a competitive and M&A angle, thereby helping enable clients to get an idea of where they sit with their own entity’s valuation, performance and market position.

 As a bean predictor (not just a bean counter) who looks forwards, my financial modelling interest is on forecasting and setting growth targets and strategies which allow actions and objectives to be set. Having worked in many countries and cultures across Europe, Middle East and Asia, and being fascinated by cultural diversity, a key component of effectiveness in a values driven CFO, this has made me an explorer of the possible rather than the “the answer’s no, what’s the question” guy. 

My focus on commercial and strategic interests is something I am always looking to utilise with my clients and stakeholders, using a pragmatic and logical, yet passionate, approach where I am often describe as having “the balance view”.