Your Career in Finance: From Audit to Finance Director – Tom Mather’s Journey
Following on from his last article, Leighton Thomas shares a real-life journey into commercial finance. He speaks with Tom Mather, Finance Director at LNT Group, who moved from audit to industry and into leadership.
Your Career in Finance: From Audit to Finance Director – Tom Mather’s Journey
Following on from his last article, Leighton Thomas shares a real-life journey into commercial finance. He speaks with Tom Mather, Finance Director at LNT Group, who moved from audit to industry and into leadership.
Q&A: From Audit to FD – A Real-Life Journey of Tom Mather
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We caught up with Tom Mather, Finance Director at LNT Group, for a quick Q&A about his move from audit into commercial finance and eventually into senior leadership. He shares how he made the transition, the skills that helped most, and advice for anyone looking to follow a similar path.
What was your first “commercial” role after qualifying, and how did it come about?
I moved into industry into a Group FC role at a company called Clugston in Scunthorpe. This was a c.£180m turnover business which was family owned. I was probably quite lucky that they gave me the opportunity to do the job, as the other candidates I was up against were already experienced people in industry. The job search was at the classic stage in an auditor’s life, where you start to question if the grass is greener on the other side and this role ticked a lot of boxes for me.
What skills did you find most transferable from audit/practice into business partnering?
Definitely the most transferable skills are around networking, being able to communicate with non-accountants and understand what other areas of the business do. Anyone training in audit will no doubt have had instances of meeting people from operations or commercial, to help build a picture of the business – even if its just for your going concern assessment for the audit file.
Other than the softer skills, another transferable skill was being able to understand what the numbers are telling you, the story behind them both from a historic sense and also what does it tell you about for the future. If you can ask yourself the question like, tell me how your business makes money, where is it going in the future, how do you/can you create value etc… then you’re probably thinking in the right way.
Were there any courses, mentors, or resources that helped you build your commercial acumen?
In my earlier experience in industry I learned most by how a business shouldn’t be run (!), so maybe a tough few lessons. However, there are some very experienced board members in the region which I certainly look up to, as well as some of the more commercial thinking partners in practice (which is usually not your audit partners…!). At LNT, the founder is Lawrence Tomlinson, whom is a very successful and well known entrepreneur locally and across the UK. He is an example of someone I have learned a lot from, along with some of the more seasoned board directors at LNT.
To be honest I think I have learned the most through exposure to lots of different situations – whether it be business turnaround, debt raising, M&A activity, strategic business planning/strategy changes etc.
Looking back, what would you have done differently when trying to break into commercial finance?
That’s a good question. You have to be very good at financial modelling and that becomes a key output the more senior you get. Ultimately the business plan – or plan(s), given you need to factor in many different scenarios – become the focal point for running any business. So getting clued up on building complex financial models and integrated P&L, Balance Sheet and Cashflows is so key. I would have done more around excel wizardry, speaking to the CF/Restructuring teams in practice much sooner, had I known that beforehand.
What advice would you give to someone currently in a technical role who wants to be a future FD/CFO?
I think the best advice I can give to anyone is if you have ambitions to become an FD/CFO, you have to go and get exposure to lots of different things. I wouldn’t sign up to a role that is something you know 100% inside and out – what is that going to do for you and what are you learning? Don’t just “play it safe” in each move you make. Put yourself in situations where you’ll do more than just report some Management Information – the sooner you get exposure to funding, cashflow, business modelling/planning, M&A etc, the quicker you’ll move up the ranks.
Leighton Thomas – Read my Q&A here
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Email: leighton@pratappartnership.com
Read my other 'Your Career in Finance' Articles in my series here:
