On Wednesday 13th October 2021 Savant’s very own Richard Alborough hosted yet another informative webinar alongside specialist guest speakers: Mark Newbold at Haines Watts and Matthew Harris at Whywick. 

Our guest speakers are both highly experienced chartered accountants with over 20 years experience.

Mark Newbold, a chartered accountant with over 20 years’ experience who has recently joined the Haines Watts team in Reading as a Partner.  Mark has a slightly unusual background for an accountant as he has acted as FD for a Construction business as well as completing four years as FD for a multinational Logistics and field resourcing business. His experience as an FD and a Partner gives him a rarely seen perspective for an accountant working in advisory as he has lived and breathed the challenges that many of you face every day.

Meet Matthew Harris - A chartered accountant with over 25 years of business experience in the UK and US.  In 2018 Matthew set up his own consultancy business, focused on training and development of leadership teams in finance and strategy.  Matthew has successfully developed and delivered a series of business partnering workshops. Matthew is also the author of 100+ Top Tips for Understanding Business Finance.

We covered a range of topics and the effects of COVID-19 on the financial sector. Mark provided a detailed overview into the current business environment in a post-Covid and post-Brexit market. On the other hand, Matthew was able to explore the role of business partnering and the barriers that leaders in finance can face, including improving revenue and profitability. Mark and Matthew both gave excellent insight into how businesses, be it within the financial sector or the recruitment industry, need to tailor their approach in a post Covid world. 

Our overall webinar attendees were at an all time high, once again proving the reach and value in sharing knowledge! 

Once again a huge thank you to our Co-host Mark Newbold and  Matthew Harris for helping make the webinar a huge success! 

Feedback from the Webinar: 

"A great morning session. Various insights from other CFOs about their worked experience is beneficial as you do not interact directly with other CFOs very often" 

"A useful reminder of the all round skills required of Finance. Also helpful to have an update on the UK economy, job market and impending tax rate changes" 

"I found the severe impact on multi-tasking or being a "busy fool" has on productivity and IQ particularly interesting and how this will trickle into everything being done" 

"Tax & Earn-out information was a useful summary, but I was very interested in Matthew's slides on Business Partnering as I've been in organisations that have introduced business partnering as part of the finance team - one which was reasonably successful, one which gave up - it became an "in" job title a few years ago and I'm not sure the job description and communication to non-finance teams was always framed correctly!"

"Interesting to hear that multitasking makes you less effective, will certainly be thinking more about that in future as I always need more time" 

Stay tuned for our next webinar... To keep up to date check out our Events Page