Rob is joining Forensic Analytics as CFO in May 2023. A Mercia backed SaaS company with a fantastic product and definitely a company to watch – a client with one of the most fascinating technological developments we have worked with in the past year - they are digital forensic experts who work with law enforcement agencies with a very significant impact.

Rob has built up a very successful career in finance, including some of the following roles:

Trained at Garbutt & Elliott in York, qualifying ICAEW in 2002

• Group Financial Controller at Synarbor plc
• Group Accountant at Keepmoat
• Group CFO at Portland Investment Group
• Head of Finance at Servelec
• Head of Finance at Trustonic

We have known Rob for over 10 years and we were delighted to have placed him for the second time. There are so many reasons why we wanted to share his experiences with our network – he epitomises so much of what makes up the perfect modern CFO.

You reached your first CFO role with just 12 years’ PQE (placing you in the top quartile according to our CFO Network Annual Report) and have progressed since then. What has been your strategy for building a career as a CFO?

To form a strategy I first had to decide what I would enjoy doing. After leaving practice I cut my teeth in a PE backed group with a buy and build strategy which gave me great exposure to M&A and FP&A work, but also the challenges of running a fast-paced growing businesses. This experience shaped my career as I loved the dynamism and complexities of building something successful at quite a fast pace.

From there I also started to understand what would make a good CFO. I set myself certain targets in order to reach a CFO role by a certain point in my career such as role progressions, sectors and timescales, but deliberately kept it flexible as opportunities to veer off course and do something exciting and different come up all the time. This approach has seen me work across a variety of sectors and in businesses of all shapes and sizes, but ultimately provided me with strong core accounting and soft skills that can be applied to any CFO role regardless of the company.

So many CFOs stay in the same sector throughout much of their career – you have broken this rule by covering construction, property, recruitment and technology. What have been the benefits to you in having a variety of experience?

I think this was a positive outcome of having a flexible strategy. My early experience taught me that it wasn’t necessarily the sector that I enjoyed working in but the actual work I was doing within that business - transformational change that transcended the sector itself and could be applied anywhere. The key was identifying businesses that had that same energy and desire that I had.

A wide range of sector experience has definitely kept my career interesting, and undoubtedly I have learnt skills and fresh ideas that I have been able to transfer into new sectors.

I’ve always been conscious that not staying within the same sector would exclude me from certain roles, but it’s fair to say it hasn’t been a barrier at all to the type of roles I have wanted. I think that comes back to the strength of the accounting and transferrable skills I have gained – although they can be applied across any sector, the fact I have then been able to show successful application of them across a variety of sectors has definitely been beneficial to my career.

Technology and SaaS sectors have been in the ascendancy over recent years. Our Annual Report highlighted that the sector accounted for 6% of the CFO population in Yorkshire but 16% of the CFO hires last year. Why is the sector growing so quickly? What are the main challenges that the sector creates for the CFO?

Technology and SaaS is an exciting growing sector, and where I have finally found my sector ‘home’!

The nature of the sector and fast technological change means there are a lot of M&A speculation and opportunities around, particularly for the high growth companies. Life cycles between acquisition/start of growth and exit can be quite short and the challenge is to maintain and deliver fast & high growth value. The CFO has to work very closely with the commercial and product teams to ensure targets are met, or red flags are raised as early as possible. Equally the CFO needs to ensure they have an agile finance team able to provide the right information early enough to drive the right conversations.

The CFO has to be very commercially minded as well. Constant pressures from new markets, new product and new competitors will require constant focus on pricing strategies and deliverables, while maintaining gross margin levels. It is important to be agile as well as these can change overnight with technological advances.

Finally, cash is king and never more so than in fast growing tech businesses. Speed of change is higher than a lot of other sectors, and most businesses will typically have a high fixed staff cost base. The CFO’s challenge is to have far enough sight of the cash position to be able to quickly tackle issues and opportunities as they arise.

Your last role and your next role are true remote-based roles. How do you approach working as a CFO 200 miles from home and what advice would you give to other candidates considering this?

Technology undoubtedly plays a huge part in the ability to do this. Being able to have face to face calls and meetings via the likes of Teams/Zoom and Google Meet has changed the way we can interact with each other within the finance team itself, and also with the wider business. That and the fact all operational tools can be cloud based and accessible from anywhere, also means it doesn’t matter where in the world people are based. Working in a multinational SaaS business, we were able to work seamlessly across continents (albeit with some meetings at unsociable hours!). It also means you have a wider talent pool to recruit from.

Having said that, you can’t fully replace having human contact particularly if you are leading a team. You can’t always catch the nuances of people’s moods or intentions in messages or on video calls, and it can be important for your team’s wellbeing that you maintain regular face to face contact. Having occasional days in the office can help maintain a team’s bond and have those watercooler moments.

My advice would be to make sure the IT systems are set up correctly to allow efficient and collaborative remote working. I would also always advocate a level of hybrid working for your own sanity as well as your teams!

Your role at Synarbor was a classic first move from Practice – a technical group accounting role with plenty of FP&A work. We see so many newly-qualifieds keen to jump into Finance Business Partner or Commercial Finance roles – what advice would you give to them?

The reason I moved from practice into industry was to be part of helping drive a business forward. For me, while the technical skills I had developed in practice were important, it was the opportunity to work with a variety of different people across multiple disciplines, particularly the commercial side of a business, that really appealed.

Finance Business Partners and Commercial Finance roles give you real exposure to this, and so I would say go for it. However, look closely at the business rather than the sector to determine if it would be a good fit, both for its culture and its direction of travel. Make sure the role really will give you the opportunities and exposure you are looking for.

Who have been the most important people in your career?

It’s a good question, I have probably learnt as much from the poor managers and leaders as I have from the good ones! Although I won’t name and shame the bad ones, they were invaluable in showing me how not to behave and operate.

Honourable mentions must go to both Dan Westmoreland and Stefan Allanson at Keepmoat. Both were highly professional and experienced, and I enjoyed working for, and learning from them.

Once I decided to move into the technology sector I learnt so much from Mark Audin at first Servelec then Trustonic, who had tremendous experience in the SaaS sector and M&A work for PE businesses. I had a great few years working with Mark, and I know I can still ask his advice if ever I need to.

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