How long have you worked at Intercity Technology and can you tell us a bit about your professional background?
I've been working at Intercity Technology since July 2014 and originally joined as Corporate Development Director. As a business that was established in the mid-80s and has existed primarily as a B2B Mobile Telephony Service Provider, the business was looking to evolve and capitalize on the market shift towards a convergence of IT and Telecoms providers. We have achieved this organically and through selected acquisitions and we now have an enviable portfolio of solutions and highly skilled colleagues to support our customers.
Prior to Intercity Technology, I started my career at EY where I qualified as a Chartered Accountant and spent 7 years working in Transaction Advisory Services. After that I joined global travel management company, ATPI, as Group Financial Controller at ATPI. This was an incredible experience operating in a leveraged PE backed environment, working through a recession, integrating acquisitions and having a key part in the delivery of a successful sale by Equistone to Intermediate Capital Group.
What has been the highlight of your career at Intercity Technology?
Undoubtedly this would be leading the acquisitions to transform the business to where it is now. We first acquired Gage Networks in April 2015 which gave us expertise in Data Centre Services, Global Network Services and our own proprietary UC platform, Touch Technology.
We followed this up in November 2015 with the acquisition of Imerja which gave us real capability in Managed Services and Cloud Services and highly accredited services and infrastructure that allow us to access public sector frameworks. This acquisition fell at a challenging time for me personally with a newborn baby and my wife was suffering with epilepsy. I was doing all of the night feeds whilst also working long hours to tight deadlines to complete the transaction – in hindsight it wouldn’t have been possible to get through that period without the support of our colleagues.
In hindsight it wouldn’t have been possible to get through that period without the support of our colleagues - Bill Bates
Can you tell us something you have learnt in the last week?
I tend to find spending an hour in the company of our CTO, Matt Johnson, a fairly enlightening experience. As I’m not originally from a technology background, I had a steep learning curve to get up to speed with an industry that loves to use acronyms. Most recently I had Matt give me the lo-down on the technical aspects and advantages of SD-WAN over traditional connectivity circuits.
What are the biggest challenges facing CFOs today?
I think the biggest challenge for modern CFO’s is the sheer breadth of the role today. In the past the traditional role of the CFO has been in the preparation of financial information and application of robust financial controls. These are still the bedrock of the CFO role, but it has now evolved to be much broader, typically encompassing IT, compliance, mergers and acquisitions and simply having much more responsibility for driving value from a business. If I had to pin one thing down, it would probably be managing an increasingly complex regulatory and compliance landscape (PCI compliance, GDPR) and balancing off the cost implications of meeting these requirements.
Who is your role model?
I’ve never been someone who has identified with role models particularly. I’m fortunate enough to have work with several people who I respect and have generally tried to adopt the attributes and characteristics of those people I respect the most. The best people I’ve worked for are those who don’t dwell on issues or mistakes of the past, but focus on what can be done to improve things in the future.
Naturally there are a number of business people I admire, particularly those entrepreneurs who have made sacrifices and taken huge personal risks to build a business from scratch. As a Chartered Accountant by trade, it’s something I think I’d be too risk averse to do myself, so I have huge admiration for those who have succeeded against all odds, where others were not willing to take the chance. Quite often I think people look at a successful business from the outside, but don’t understand the blood, sweat and tears that it takes for a founder to build one.
The best people I’ve worked for are those who don’t dwell on issues or mistakes of the past, but focus on what can be done to improve things in the future. - Bill Bates
What talent do you wish you had?
There are probably two talents I wish I’d developed. I learnt to play the piano as a child, but stopped playing in my teens and haven’t played in around 25 years now and have lost all but the basics. One day I’d love to pick this back up. I’d also love to have a single figure golf handicap but have never managed to break that threshold. I like to blame this on the fact that having young children means I don’t have enough time to practice, but in reality, I’ve been trying for long enough over the years so have started to question whether I have the necessary talent and temperament.
How do you relax when not working?
These days it pretty much revolves all around my family – I have a 6-year-old boy and a 2-year old girl. Away from work I like to spend as much time as possible with them. They have the kind of social life I could only dream of and my weekend is generally filled by taking them to football training, swimming, kids parties and watching football. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
One example of something you have overcome?
Like many people, I suffered from something of a fear of heights. However, I’ve managed a tandem sky-dive and also done one of the highest bungee jumps in the world. Of the two, the bungee jump was definitely more nerve-wracking.
If you could have any job in the world, what would it be and why?
In the finance world I’d love to be CFO of a leading football club. I think in the most part this would actually be pretty challenging as many football teams are struggling financially. However, I imagine being CFO at somewhere like Manchester City would be pretty exciting. However, away from finance, if I could pick anything it would probably to be a scuba diving instructor. I’m sure most people would appreciate that scuba diving in exotic locations would beat crunching through complex excel spreadsheets hands down!
If you could go back and give your 21- year old self a valuable piece of advice, what would you say?
I think I’d tell me, or any 21-year old for that matter, to have more confidence in themselves
and to be more ambitious. I wish I’d travelled more and worked overseas when I was younger because these things become much more difficult once you’ve settled down and start a family. I had opportunities to work in Europe and the Far East, but unfortunately passed them up.
I’m sure most people would appreciate that scuba diving in exotic locations would beat crunching through complex excel spreadsheets hands down! - Bill Bates
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