Mike is a valued contact of our business and has a stellar reputation across the Yorkshire finance and advisory market. Mike is Office Managing Partner for RSM in Leeds and heads up nearly 300 staff, including 27 partners.

Mike is also RSM’s National Head of Manufacturing which means he leads a national network of multi-disciplinary partners who are dedicated to helping manufacturing businesses achieve success. The teamwork with an extensive portfolio of manufacturers providing proactive solutions to meet all their requirements.

Mike is unique as a Partner, in that he has also worked in industry as a CFO, so has a broad range of both practice and industry experience.

When did you decide that you wanted to pursue a career in accountancy and finance?

Quite late in the day really. I did an Engineering degree – I was good at it but didn’t really see it as a career I fancied. I’d done some summer work in a strategic marketing team, and on the back of that I found business generally interesting. So, my Dad suggested accountancy (even though he wasn’t an Accountant!) which seemed a logical move and so I got stuck into the Milk Round and joined Price Waterhouse.

You are a Partner with a leading accountancy firm and have been a CFO within industry. What made you go into industry, and then go back to practice?

I always wanted a career where I felt like I was moving forward. At PwC I was a bit worried about becoming a career Director and then the opportunity to join an AIM business as a CFO arose. It looked a great opportunity and so I went for it.

On reflection I’d not really thought through how different the culture would be moving from PwC to an organisation with 100 employees. I found the lack of structure a challenge. Ultimately the role didn’t work out and it made me realise that I missed the people within professional services. That said I thought I’d stay in Industry, but a chance meeting with RSM reignited my passion for getting back to the profession.

What main challenges do you see for the rest of 2023 and beyond, and how well are RSM positioned to handle the challenges that lay ahead?

The main challenge for industry as a whole revolves around the economy, and in particular many of us have never worked during times of higher interest rates and inflation – I include myself in this group and I’ve been working 25 years! There will be lots of opportunity for us all to learn. On a more positive note, I’m confident that inflation will recede at the back end of 2023 so that should at least help, and that’s largely because the inflation is energy price fuelled.

At RSM we’ve had a great couple of years, and we continue to be committed and optimistic about our focus on the middle market. We’re recruiting record numbers of graduates and school leavers, which reflects the opportunity we have to grow. We’re also lucky that much of our business relies on regulation and is therefore fairly recession proof.

What are the hardest aspects of your roles as Leeds Office Managing Partner and National Head of Manufacturing?

To be honest I don’t see either of those roles as particularly hard. I’m lucky – I’m part of a great team with lots of complementary perspectives – we get the essential things done and so a lot of my time is spent trying to make things even better. In this context, perhaps the biggest challenge is using leadership to get members of the team driving things forward, rather than reverting to trying to do it all yourself.

If you weren’t an accountant, what would you be?

Wow – that’s tough. My earliest career aspiration was being a pilot – but my eyesight put pay to that. More seriously, I wish I’d picked a different engineering discipline – I probably should have done mechanical engineering as I love how things work. I did Civil Engineering because I love things like the Humber Bridge, but I soon realised that there are lots of boring aspects to that discipline.

What’s the most embarrassing thing to have happened to you in the workplace? Don’t hold back!

Another tough question! I’m not sure if it’s the workplace, but I do remember a time when I was working on an away job – I managed to lock myself out of my hotel room completely naked so that was a bit embarrassing when I went down to see the night porter!

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