For experienced Finance Director (FD) Kevan Hopwood, a career of over 20 years has seen him deliver clear-cut bottom-line benefits to businesses of many sizes across multiple sectors.

This has included driving a fivefold increase in turnover in one organisation, securing returns of £250,000 from HMRC and suppliers in another, and stabilising and exiting a major brand business to the complete satisfaction of the shareholders in another, amongst many examples

Kevan’s all about leading (and often building) a Finance and financial management function that’s on top of the detail and the fundamentals, but proactive in communicating the story the numbers tell - and the business plans it informs - across all levels of the company.

He also brings a proven track record of troubleshooting, problem-solving, and turnaround work to the table, often in larger and more complex businesses that have more than equipped him for managing similar challenges in SMEs.

He demystifies financial processes and concepts (he describes forecasting, for example, quite simply, as “Understanding what the business is, where it needs to go, and how it needs to get there… It doesn’t need to be difficult…”) and prides himself on helping SMEs understand them, and the improved position the business will find itself in as a result of applying them.

CIMA-qualified, and with an MBA, Kevan brings a wealth of specialist experience to his pay-as-you-go financial management role at EFM, in, amongst others:

• Financial strategy and business improvement: setting and enforcing financial goals, and leading the business to increased profit performance, for example turning a £1.3 million loss into a £1 million profit
• Cost reduction and efficiency gains: analysing and improving operations to deliver greater productivity; strategically reviewing suppliers to deliver savings of e.g. £750,000
• Training, leadership, culture change: delivering full commercial Finance training to management and cultivating collective accountability amongst employees for the business’s financial performance
• Systems upgrades and enhancements: leading IT projects to deliver more effective and efficient technology platforms and tools, resulting in substantial profit increase
• Business integration and exit: optimising business sale to deliver maximised return to owners and shareholders, and  driving successful integration of acquired businesses prior to this stage
• Communication and teambuilding: articulating Finance simply and informatively across all levels of the organisation; developing people to create Finance teams with complementary competences that, together, deliver back to the bottom line   

• Financial services background with big-name brands and institutions including GE and HBOS
• Experienced in national automotive, business consultancy, and facilities management sectors
• Proven track record of optimising business sale for owner and shareholder benefit
• Strong communicator with a reputation for conveying detailed financial insight simply
• Closely focused on bottom-line improvement through troubleshooting, problem-solving, and turnaround

Football fan Kevan takes every opportunity he can to see his local team play, but he also has a young dog that needs energetic exercise, so he and his wife are often to be found, leash in hand, striding through the beautiful countryside on the edge of the Pennines where they live.

Kevan also enjoys cricket and socialising over a pint, but by his own admission he’s a family man at heart, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

A smaller automotive services company, owned by one of the country’s best-known brands, was loss-making, and needed a clear financial route back to profit.

Kevan, developed and executed a financial strategy that optimised productivity, increased efficiencies, and reduced costs, enabling a turnaround that lifted the company out of loss and delivered a £1 million profit.