New EFM Associate Adrian Campbell: A Love of Business Backed by a Jargon-free Approach to Finance

Dec 06 2024 Business Updates

There’s a reason new EFM Associate Adrian Campbell didn’t stay in the Chemical Engineering career he originally qualified for quite simply, he was far more interested in business!

It was this interest that led him to train successfully as an accountant (FCA) with PWC and then to build a wide-ranging Finance and financial management career across sectors as diverse as professional services, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, biotech, and hospitality, in organisations at all stages of business growth.

Hands-on and pragmatic, with a knack for helping non-specialists understand how and why Finance is important (he has guided many a pub manager through the technicalities of pricing, cash flow, working capital, inventory, and business plans), Adrian acknowledges that every business has its own language but dislikes jargon.

Instead, he prefers to explain things in simple language – using a maximum of five bullet points, if in a presentation - and then, as he puts it, “to wait for the questions.” It’s a ‘clarity-first’ approach he has perfected working with linguistically diverse teams from Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, the Netherlands, and further afield.

But Adrian’s ability to communicate simply is accompanied by a thoroughly strategic financial focus. He marries commercial objectives and business vision with resource allocation, cash flow forecasts, and systems and process improvements to not only strengthen but also transform, the business’s performance.


About Adrian:

Adrian loves variety and is naturally inquisitive, so his objective is always to understand not just the numbers but the many different stories about the business that they can tell, and, indeed, the business itself.

“I connect the dots," he says, “to understand where the growth is coming from, where the decline is happening, and where the opportunities are, and I enjoy meeting different people and working with them to deliver better.”

Adrian’s always keen to understand what the business’s ambitions are because this enables him to bring sequence and priority to the financial, plan, and direct expenditure and investment where (and when) it will generate the most strategic return.

“It can be tempting for the business to try and do everything all at once,” he explains, “but it may not have the resources or skill sets necessary, so I’ll look at how we can acquire them.”

Indeed, upskilling staff is something Adrian also knows about, having run Finance training for non-Finance personnel, and developed Finance teams to move away from back-office technical detail towards more business-focused analytical insights - and the beneficial decisions can be made from them.


What Adrian will help EFM to do:

By Adrian’s admission, he likes to “get things done”, and with his EFM clients, this will see him not only delving into budgeting, cash flow forecasting, and business strategy, but also proposing and implementing changes to systems, processes, and teams to transform performance and results.

Financial controls also figure strongly in Adrian’s approach, reinforced by his background in cash-based industries like the pub trade, where each house is essentially a small business in itself, but also by his close attention to fundamentals like collection, credit control, loan servicing, and investor returns.

Adrian says that despite his gift for “scrutinising the detail,” he also retains “a big picture view,” and his experience of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and international expansion, for example, bear this out, and will serve EFM clients that are in growth mode very well.

Adrian also brings significant teambuilding skills to the table, with a successful track record of developing team members to realise their true potential and reshaping teams to attain a more effective skills mix.

Taking the same straightforward approach to communication from the Board level down to the most junior employee, Adrian will build a culture of openness and involvement around Finance, strengthening financial awareness and skills across the organisation, and elevating the primacy of Finance in driving positive business outcomes.


In his own words:

Adrian says of becoming an EFM Associate:After an extensive career in Finance across different sectors, I’m really pleased that EFM now gives me the opportunity to use that expertise to help SMEs get affordable access to the Finance leadership and advice that can make such a difference to the success of their business, through the outsourced Finance Director model.”

“EFM will connect me to new clients and prospects, but also enable me to engage with them flexibly, on a pay-as-you-go financial management basis.”


View Adrian's full profile here

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