Andrea delivers the skill set that SMEs need: the ability to solve problems, root out inefficient and error-prone processes and replace them with something better, and lead on business-critical areas outside Finance wherever required.

But she’s also clear that her actions must deliver measurable business improvement and ultimately help generate a stronger financial performance. Change for change’s sake is never in scope.

And looking at Andrea’s track-record, the benefits her approach delivers have positively impacted SME businesses in many different circumstances and at diverse stages of business growth and development – including turnaround, securing sources of external finance, expansion by acquisition, early-stage to scale-up transition, and delivery of major change management projects.

Andrea’s focus on implementing, improving, and integrating systems, both for Finance and wider business processes, has enabled the businesses she has worked in to maximise efficiency and productivity, whilst also generating clearer and more accessible management information (MI) to support more timely and insightful reporting, budgeting, cash flow analysis, and business plans.

But Andrea is also a committed communicator, who cultivates the most important asset in any business – its human capital. She prizes team development and mentoring highly, and strongly believes in helping everyone in the team to develop and reach their own potential.

This investment adds value to the business, and has enabled Andrea to successfully create, build, and grow Finance teams from scratch.

As an EFM outsourced Finance Director with extensive experience in SME environments across many different sectors, Andrea brings proven breadth and depth of Finance and financial management capability to her work, covering achievements including:

• Growth by acquisition: Assessing financial and commercial information pre-acquisition; successfully integrating the acquired businesses post-acquisition
• Systems improvement and migration: Implementing and integrating more efficient systems and strategies for Finance and accounting, job management, ordering and invoicing, credit control, and document management
• Strengthened budgeting and forecasting: Improving systems and processes to deliver more timely cash flow analysis and more accurate projections
• Improved reporting and insight: Designing and implementing new reporting formats for more consistent comparison and more reliable outputs
• Business turnaround: Transforming business performance – understanding that growth is often a mixture of investment, cost savings, organic growth and acquisition.
• Establishing financial controls and discipline: Creating systems, processes, and Finance functions from scratch to deliver rapid and sustained improvement to financial procedure and clarity

1. Advanced Excel spreadsheet modelling skills.
2. Extensive experience of Sage 50 Accounts, Sage 200 and Sage Payroll.
3. Excellent Microsoft Word/Office skills
4. Job Logic job management system

• SME-focused multi-sector experience, including commercial cleaning, technology, components distribution, retail, care provision, and the arts
• Expertise in diverse senior Finance roles - CFO, Finance Director, Financial Controller
• FCA-qualified, with a ‘Big Four’ auditing background
• Strong problem-solving and commercial skills
• Accustomed to taking responsibility for issues outside pure Finance – e.g. legal, contractual, IT, insurance

A small commercial cleaning company was experiencing multiple operational and other issues, resulting in poor revenue performance and stagnating growth.

Andrea transformed systems, processes, and strategies within the organisation to maximise efficiencies and support a programme of expansion by acquisition -  increasing the company’s annual turnover from £3 million to £20 million.

Andrea is a prolific reader, with a taste for literature across many genres. She likes walking her dogs in the beautiful surroundings of the Derbyshire Peak District, where she lives, and has also taken up e-biking. Andrea is an accomplished French speaker and enjoys travelling to Europe.