ICAS - The Professional Body of CAs

University of Glasgow

Hutchesons' Grammar School

CEO at LeaseLoco

LeaseLoco is the UK's Biggest Car Lease Comparison Site, comparing some 10 million + deals.

With an unparalleled user experience in the industry we continue to see incredible growth.

Have a look at www.leaseloco.com and you'll quickly see why people are so excited by this product.

LeaseLoco

Brought in to completely overhaul the finance function:

•	Introduced a dynamic daily cash flow forecasting structure giving strong future cash visibility.
•	Identified and realised c.£40k of cost savings in the first 2 months.
•	Restructured the finance team, bringing month end reporting down from 6 weeks to 1 week.
•	Implemented many best practice controls and procedures.
•	Significant revenue recognition review, moving the business towards revenue in line with job delivery, rather than invoicing, to understand profitability and create other key metrics.

Pursuit Marketing

Finance Director

Nameloop was an app for people to store and share their contact information - essentially the goal was to network the world's personal data so you simply control who or what has access to it. Unfortunately we ran out of funding to allow the business to continue and deliver on the vision. 

https://vimeo.com/103436923

Nameloop

CEO and co-founder

Bourne merged with Next Fifteen sister agency, Bite Communications in April 2012 with our public launch taking place in November:

http://www.holmesreport.com/news-info/12721/Bite-Merges-With-Digital-Firm-Bourne.aspx

Since the merger, I focused on:

*The financial integration of a recent German acquisition, Trademark Communications GmbH
*The standardisation of reporting and process across EMEA
*The remodelling of the financial integration of Bourne into Bite to ensure a truly global approach to maximise opportunity and growth

Following the delivery of the post-merger projects, I was looking for a new challenge again and left to get involved with another start-up.

Bite Communications

Finance Director, EMEA

The Bourne Board invested the start-up of CARGO, an ecommerce development company. I set up the finance function and financial reporting to the Board. 

In November 2011, I felt the time was right to step away from CARGO and exited for a 20x return.

CARGO eCommerce

Co-Founder and Board Member.

Founded in September 2009, my initial responsibilities involved setting up the financial system and controls and developing the financial side of the business plan. Through this we secured Equity and Debt funding through Invoice Discounting. Being a start-up, there were a lot of financial pressures on the business, which required close monitoring, commercial analysis to support strong decisions and ultimately the reorganisation of resources as required. 

Following the start-up process, I setup the US subsidiary (Bourne Marketing Group Inc.) and financial reporting structure, appointing and working with New York lawyers and accountants. 

Through 2010 we grew the business by 11% a quarter (46% YOY growth) and decided that to move with the market we would need to be acquired or form a partnership with a larger entity to continue to develop the business and protect the company against the risks of being an SME. In May 2011, we sold an 80% interest to Next Fifteen Communications Group Plc. (LSE: NFC), an AIM listed, global PR communications business with 1600 employees and 48 offices worldwide. Throughout this process, I managed the valuation, negotiations and data room management with our advisors IBIS Capital and Osborne Clarke.

Towards the end of Bourne I was responsible for the UK and US finance functions, reporting into the N15 plc. Board.

Bourne

Archangels was the largest angel investor network group in Europe (by funds invested) when I worked there in 2009, investing up to £2m of seed capital and further funding in any one round. 

Appointed on a consultancy basis initially to provide company valuation work on two portfolio companies that were attracting acquiror attention. This led to me building and developing an IRR model for all of the current and past 62 portfolio companies. The model was used to pull data quickly for board reports and provide performance and funding analysis that was not available before the model was built. Again, applying advanced excel skills.

ARCHANGEL INFORMAL INVESTMENT LIMITED

IRR Modelling Consultant

Working within the Oil and Gas and Tech teams, my responsibilities included:
•	Search and evaluation of acquisition or potential acquiror targets using Bloomberg and M&A databases.
•	Liaise with clients/acquirors and manage the deal process.
•	Financial modelling and company valuation, building DCF and LBO models from scratch applying advanced excel skills, supported by Comparable Company and Comparable Transaction analysis.

Brewin Dolphin

Corporate Finance Analyst

CA training contract.

Over my tenure I progressed to Audit Senior and was responsible for the planning and delivery of external audits up to £20m turnover. A large part of my role was focussing on Internal Audits for colleges across the UK, which is where I built up my skills around best practice on internal systems and controls and their application in any finance function.

John Wilmot