Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
I am the Chief Operational and Financial Officer of a boutique UK based corporate legal practice, with overall responsibility for all Finance, Risk, Compliance and HR functions as well as close liaison with the Office Manager on all wider operational matters. I support the Managing Partner and Management Board with all strategic projects, having completed a de-merger of our former London PE team, the implementation of a major practice management system and the restructuring of the business into a dual-regulated LLP. I have a number of non-executive board roles in both the Renewable Energy space as well as a Charity Trustee position, and have recently taken on the role of Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee in both organisations.
Having been a mentor for the ICAS Foundation for almost 10 years, I am delighted to have joined the board as a Trustee so that I can further support the Trust as it looks to increase its reach and provide support for even more young talent looking to enter the world of accountancy and finance
I have recently taken on a role as a mentor with the ICAS Foundation which was set up to assist primarily young people in the United Kingdom who require financial and mentoring assistance to make progress on their journey to Chartered Accountancy and other finance and management-related careers. I am looking forward to helping others foster a great career in accountancy, finance and management. See http://icas.org.uk/ICASFoundation/ for more information on the good work they do and how to get involved.
I was brought into the firm to support the partnership to drive and help deliver the wider commercial, operational and strategic direction of the business as we emerged from the global pandemic. This was intended to free up the legal partners from the day-to-date management of operations and enable them up to focus more on business development and the delivery of client facing work. Since I joined the firm, my focus has been on building a strong team across finance, HR and compliance driving greater efficiency, cross team collaboration and modernising the Finance, HR, Compliance and Risk processes. I have successfully led projects such as automation of the banking process, the implementation of a comprehensive new Practice Management System (PMS) combining previously separate time recording, billing and transactional processing systems within a one-stop shop, and enhancement of the previously reporting processes so that we are able to provide more comprehensive and real-time management reporting. During my relatively brief time with the firm to date, there have been a number of significant strategic projects which I have helped the partners navigate, such as the separation of our former London Private Equity practice including the commercial and operational negotiations involved, the aforementioned implementation of the new PMS with my business support teams performing all design, testing and implementation workstreams, resulting in minimal disruption to the legal teams during this 18 month project. More recently I drove the conversion of our 40 year old Scottish general partnership to a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) and more recently led the dual-registration of our firm under both the Law Society of Scotland and the SRA.
I am delighted to have become involved with The Rock Trust which started almost 25 years ago when, in an environment of recession and welfare reform, youth homelessness increased. It has grown since then and now has a team of 40 professionals providing services for 400-800 young people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless each year. I look forward to working with the excellent management team to continue to grow in Scotland and expand services in both size and geography. The Rock Trust are a financially healthy organisation with an annual income of around £1.3 million, delivering some key local authority contracts and balance this with grants and fundraising from donations and sponsored events.