For David Knight, an internationally experienced Finance and financial management professional, with over 20 years’ of multi-sector background, the determination to constantly improve and deliver better is as much a part of his personal as his professional character.

As a former competitive swimmer, he understands the need to dig deep and reduce resistance. He’s spent much of his career applying these principles to his approach to Finance – diving into data to draw the financial insight and intelligence out, but also building close relationships with people to streamline processes and make them more efficient.

With a background in sectors as diverse as fire and security, retail fashion, consumer electronics, and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), amongst others, David combines his analytical skills with a strong commercial focus to act as a growth advisor and put pay-as-you-go financial management front and centre in driving every stage of business growth.

"Finance is about understanding the business," he says, "and it should be in every strategic decision because every strategic decision relies on financial resources."

This perspective is also behind David’s proven ability to develop financial strategies that solve challenges and exploit opportunities through actionable insights and unflinching metrics that target demonstrable bottom-line benefits.

And whilst David enjoys communicating Finance in clear and simple language at all levels across the organisation, he also relishes the challenge of implementing complex financial deliverables on both an ongoing and project basis, including strategic business plans and planning, cash flow analysis, forecasting, financial modelling, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and integrations - amongst others.

About David

David has experience within his career working, as he puts it, "with small entities, and getting my hands dirty," so he’s ideally positioned to understand both the issues and opportunities that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need Finance leadership to deal effectively with.

He understands, for example, that the data and management information (MI) necessary for accurately modelling Finance is often not easily available in smaller businesses, so his pragmatic take on this is to "look at what you can, form the interpretations that you can, and make appropriate decisions off the back of them - but improve the process so you can do it better next week."

David’s also totally committed - in acting as an outsourced Finance department of one, in many instances - to clarity in how he communicates Finance, both to teams and at Board level.

He points out that whilst jargon is unhelpful, explanations of "what the numbers mean" must also, when necessary, articulate counter-intuitive truths.

"Sometimes," he says, "the most profitable numbers are not the best for the business at that time. It’s important to communicate that the interpretation of the numbers should never become over-reliant on one aspect."

But in environments where Finance doesn’t exist as a formal function or is struggling to perform, David is also adept and experienced at turning the situation around and reestablishing Finance as the authoritative source of the business’s measures of success.

What David will help EFM to do

For David, the key benefit he brings to EFM and its clients is his analytical, commercially focused approach to the role, which values outcomes rather than outputs. "All my experience has entailed looking closely at the commercial side," he says. "I’ve been living that day in, day out for many years."

He gives the example of a company he worked for that was undertaking multiple large projects, but had no clear idea of their profitability – or otherwise. David immediately set about remedying this situation to enable the business to make better decisions in selecting only those projects that would deliver strongly to the bottom line and drive growth.

Again, like the swimmer determined to achieve ever faster times over ever longer distances, David’s goal is to enable EFM’s client businesses to constantly perform better – not simply to keep their bookkeepers busy.

But he’s clear that this is a journey in which everybody in the business shares a stake, a purpose, and a contribution, and he’s determined to communicate this effectively – whether that’s, as he puts it, "one to one, or getting people in a room" - to ensure that "everyone is pulling in the same direction."

He calls this "a collaboration of all of you", and his EFM clients will experience this effect first-hand.

In his own words

David’s work with EFM, he says, gives him the best of both worlds. On the one hand, the ability to choose a variety of interesting clients that enables him to put his extensive skills and experience to good use; on the other, a work-life balance that makes it possible for him to enjoy what he loves best: "Getting away to the countryside and the coast to walk the dog and make the most of my National Trust membership."

He also points out that EFM, with its model of providing outsourced Finance Directors and other Finance professionals, offers excellent alternative opportunities for those who might otherwise consider ending a long career. "EFM gives many professionals a route into working in later life as part-time Finance Directors and similar," he says, "and shows that retirement doesn’t have to be a sudden event.”

Click here to view David’s EFM Profile.