Tell us about your career - any particular highlights in your working life to date?
Qualifying as a Chartered accountant (back in 1989!) was one of my proudest moments. Results were sent by post (not always reliable even then) but were also published in the Times – I had been away on holiday and bought the Times in Heathrow airport but didn’t look until I arrived back home!
My children always described my job as Partner as ‘drinking coffee and chatting’ – I am very lucky to be able to say I enjoy what I do and there have only been a few occasions when I have not wanted to go to work. I have signed some large audit reports as well as acted for many small clients – each have given me a great deal of satisfaction in different ways.
Tell us a bit about yourself
Where’s home? Are you a “local”?
I have lived in Hampshire for the past 30 years now living close to Ringwood. Originally from Suffolk.
Tell us about your typical weekend
Always hectic – 3 grown up children who still take up weekends! Two daughters show jump so usually one day is at a show jumping event somewhere in southern England. I have a 22-year-old horse (Nelson) which I try and ride at least once at the weekend and the rest of the time is spent gardening or cleaning!
Your involvement with ICAEW Southern
What are your goals for the coming year as President?
My aim is to try and get as many members as possible to let us know what we can do for them – the District Societies are there for the members benefit and to feed information from ICAEW central to members and to provide information from the DS to ICAEW central.
What do you think ICAEW Southern does well?
As a DS we arrange a lot of events and try to support individuals in many ways. We are always open to suggestions and try and implement changes, so we are always improving our offerings. The committee is made up of a number of very different people allowing us to consider members from differing backgrounds.
What would you like ICAEW Southern to do more of (if anything)?
It would be great to see more members at events and generally using the facilities ICAEW offer. There is always room for improvement, but I believe we are currently trying to address as many members as possible which hopefully will lead to a better District Society.