Emma Davies is one of the most influential finance leaders in the South Yorkshire region. She is one of the partners based in the Sheffield office of Grant Thornton UK and she leads the Special Projects team for the firm across the North and the East Midlands.

She started her training contract with GT in Sheffield, but has not stayed in one place for the whole time. Emma had a gap of eight years, during which she held the following roles before making Partner in 2020:

• One year secondment with GT in Melbourne, Australia
• Financial Controller at GE Energy
• Five interim FC and FD roles with a range of businesses in Yorkshire and the East Midlands, including Flowserve Corporation, Wraith plc, Trupart,and Kisimul School.

We wanted Emma’s views on a long list of subjects that affect the accounting industry, the Yorkshire region, ED&I and challenges facing businesses in 2023.

How soon did you start to plan your route to Partner at Grant Thornton? Please share some of the details of your journey and how the time away from the firm may have benefitted you more.

I am not someone who has ever had a grand career plan. I enjoy high variety and challenge in my work and have got an entrepreneurial streak.  The key is to learn something new from every role you do, build on your experience and confidence with each new project or role and enjoy it all.  

Whilst I have always loved the professional services environment, I wanted to know what it would be like to work ‘on the other side’ in a company, so when I returned from Australia I decided to try a few interim roles.  I was lucky enough to work for two inspirational female Finance Directors in different companies during this time who I learned so much from (back in a time when female leaders were few and far between).  I learned how to work with male dominated boards with so many different personalities, worked through some challenging business situations and grew my own confidence as a finance professional. I also spent a couple of months in India when I was at GE training their accounting teams – an amazing life experience! This period in my career really built up my resilience and my belief that I could succeed in the future as a leader.

I was delighted to pass my partner panel in 2019 and was officially appointed to the partnership on 1 April 2020, just as Covid-19 hit!  As you can imagine, I really had to dig deep into my reserves of resilience and courage during that period and I am so proud of what the team and I achieved.

Since my appointment as partner, our team’s growth has been phenomenal and I am so proud of how my idea has grown into a fully-fledged service line for Grant Thornton.  We now have a national presence, work with several household names, and have an innovative blended team of both employees and agile self-employed workers spread all over the country, delivering high quality work for our clients.

What is your assessment of the business sector in Sheffield today? Where are the strengths to build from and the opportunities to explore?

Sheffield has changed so much during my working life and I do think that the future is looking bright.  Making things, creativity and innovation will always be at the heart of Sheffield but the shift to growing sectors including digital, technology, renewable energy, health innovation, ‘clean’ manufacturing and the continued growth of the AMRC area will set us up well for the next generation.  

I am delighted to see the Heart of the City project move towards completion.  I had a tour round the various sites a few weeks ago and was impressed by the mix of new and old architecture and the restoration of a number of buildings for mixed use purposes. This will help attract further investment into the city centre and create that vibrancy that is much needed to make Sheffield the destination of choice for employers, as a place to live and for students to stay on after graduation and into employment.

I was also pleased to see that South Yorkshire has been announced as the UK’s first Investment Zone, which should bring more investment into the city and create more employment prospects, which is a real opportunity to build on.

The list of challenges for employers to attract, engage and retain young adults has grown significantly over the past few years. Grant Thornton has been more successful than most in this area. What has worked most effectively for you?

At Grant Thornton, our people are our business. Following the changes to working styles brought about by the pandemic, we introduced a ‘How we Work’ framework to ensure that when our people are making choices about how, where or when they work, and that they have the support and tools they need. It is about creating balance and, typically, we will spend between 1 – 4 days per week at an office or client premises depending on the needs of our clients and our teams, and ensuring that our new trainees are getting enough real-life work experience and development. Our focus is on creating flexibility in where, how, and when we work to deliver the best results for our clients.

I understand that we all have a life outside of work and to get the most from my team providing flexibility and high levels of trust around outputs, rather than the mentality of clocking in and out each day with fixed hours works very well. I know, personally, having a young family, that the opportunity to fit occasional school drop offs, pick-ups and other life admin in and around my working day is crucial, and enables me to be more effective and focused at work.

We have a strong culture focused on creating an inclusive environment where all our people can grow and are comfortable to bring their whole selves to work.  We want our teams to reflect the diversity of our clients and the environments in which they operate and have a focus on five key strands of diversity and inclusion: gender, LGBTQIA+, ethnicity and cultural heritage, social mobility and disability.  For me, gender and social mobility particularly resonate having joined the world of accountancy as a shy school leaver from a very modest background - back then, I don’t think I ever imagined I could be a Partner and it’s so important that we continue to break down barriers to accessing and progressing within the profession.

Our CFO Network Annual Report highlighted that only 16% of CFOs in Yorkshire are female, with 26% representation of new appointments over the past year. What are your views on effective diversity of board rooms and leadership teams in our region and in the accounting industry?

This is an area that I am really passionate about. Gradually, things are moving in the right direction but there is still so much more to do in our region and across the accounting industry as a whole.  We know that it is often after middle-senior management level that the percentage of women and non-binary people in leadership roles decreases.

Personally, I think that a lot of this has to do with a lack of confidence and understanding about the non-technical skills needed to progress. In many organisations there are still not enough female role models for younger generations to look up to and aspire towards, and more allyship and sponsorship is needed from senior leaders to support women to the next level. At Grant Thornton we offer a programme for our female senior managers called ‘Elevate’ which aims to develop our future female leaders and support their progression and offers coaching and advocacy from senior leaders. Providing a degree of flexibility in the working day is also essential for many women to be able to succeed.    

We know that gender balanced leadership teams are better for business and diverse decision-making. It is so important to have that diversity of thought and life experience – we all view the world in a different way and this diversity should be mirrored in the senior leadership teams across industries.

The Special Projects team is a growing success across the firm. Please tell us a little about the history and how this specialism operates.

During my eight-year stint in various industry roles I identified a gap in the market in professional services to deliver hands-on, high-quality support to finance teams where they do not have the expertise or capacity in house to deliver on a project or the bandwidth to work through complex accounting or historical issues.  I have always been quite creative and see opportunities everywhere, which is why I came back to Grant Thornton and set up our ‘Special Projects’ team, which we now call FAAS (Financial Accounting Advisory Services), which undertakes financial reporting advisory assignments and finance placements for clients.I built the team organically from scratch and continued to test the market. I think I saw the opportunity for me to progress to partner when I had gradually built out the team in the North and Midlands, had demonstrated that clients find our FAAS service very valuable, and had a clear business case.

Tell us about Emma out of work.

Outside of work, I have a ten year old son who keeps me very busy with all his social and sporting activities!  I enjoy countryside walks, travelling and spending time with friends and family. I am looking forward to a big American road trip this summer and will be staying in eight different places along the way.