1

I grew up in Queensferry, a small seaside town 10 miles west of Edinburgh. It’s lovely but there’s not a lot of opportunities. I was the first in my family to go to uni. I had the opportunity to make something of myself. So I was always going to do that.

My dad is a locksmith and Mum is a nurse who works nights, so she would obviously be asleep during the day. There was this sort of revolving door of parenthood, so I learnt to look after myself from a young age.

16

Until I was 16 I had no idea what I wanted to do. But at that point I pulled my socks up and was like, if I want to move away and better myself, I need to put my head down. That’s when I started to get the grades I needed, including five As. I had a really good mentor at school – funnily enough, my accounts teacher. I enjoyed the numbers, structure and discipline of accounts. It’s a very rules-based science. It just made sense – there are specific rules and you can’t go outside them. And because I never had that in my own life, that was really beneficial for me.

17

I studied accountancy and business at the University of Stirling. It’s not far from home, but I chose to move out, aged 17, and live on campus. The uni is its own little microclimate outside the city – one of those campuses which isn’t easy to get to, but it has shops, the uni and accommodation all in one area. You never have to leave – and once you’re there you never want to. It has great countryside, with hills and lakes. Having that landscape on the doorstep was just huge for me.

2015

At first, university was a culture shock. It was about the end of the second week that I began to realise there’d be no one telling you what to do or when. You had to work it out for yourself. My course was linked to ICAS, so doing certain modules meant getting exemptions for CA exams. I was savvy about that and picked those ones that would give me the most exemptions because I knew that’s the path I was going to go down.

My aunt worked within the European Union and she was able to get me a brief internship in Brussels. I was there for a month or two in summer 2015, which gave me additional experience. Things like that are very helpful, because even though I had an ‘in’ through my aunt, no one hands it to you on a plate. Spending time abroad, showing you can look after yourself, get by in another language and so on, shows initiative.

60%

In 2018 I was lucky enough to get a training contract at Chiene + Tait. I signed up to the audit department, which was a great grounding because you see so much. You’ve got a different client every week. You’re looking at systems, checking the transactions, creating their statutory accounts, posting journals. I couldn’t have made a better choice.

About 60% of the audits I worked on there were charities. The rest were family-owned businesses, pension schemes or public entities. That connection with charities has continued in my professional life and become a sort of specialism.

£200m

After qualifying in 2020 I spent a couple of years with Lothian Buses, which is the biggest council-owned, municipal bus company in the UK. At the time it had around 3,000 employees, 1,000 buses and a turnover of £200m. I was Group Financial Accountant and that was my first exposure to a business of that size.

That was my first opportunity to line manage people as well. I came in and I had 13 people to manage without any training. So that was a big move for me. Initially it was a struggle, being the youngest in the room and telling people what to do, but I would always have an open door and take people as they are. 

1907

We tend to deliver huge buildings and projects, such as hospitals, event spaces, lots of MOD and government work. We’re also doing a restoration of the old King’s Theatre in Edinburgh. I used to go there as a child, then it closed for restoration, which is where we come in. Restoration is much more expensive and difficult than a rebuild. So this is a massive project, one of love and nurture to put this landmark 1907 building back to what it was. For me, that’s my favourite project so far, because I know the building.  

3

I joined the ICAS Charities Panel a few years ago. I’m interested in the third sector, its regulation and accounting policy and standards – and I’m Treasurer at Planning Aid Scotland, which helps people with planning issues.

The ICAS Charities Panel brings together CAs with lots of different expertise – there are people who are FDs of a charity, there are lawyers, audit partners and ICAS itself. It brings all those people together. We look at the standards and issues coming up, form an opinion and then put a paper together to get our voice heard. It has been really useful for me to see, because you get to see that direct line between things we were talking to government about – for example, on audit thresholds and standards for charities – and the subsequent changes to legislation. ICAS made the representations based on our discussions; it’s gone to the Scottish government and government has said: “ICAS know what they’re talking about. We’re going to do something.”

26

I’m married to a fellow CA who I met during training – in fact, she was my line manager. We have a three-year-old son. Becoming a dad has completely transformed my life. There’s nothing like it. Life’s so much better now. A lot of my peers are waiting to have children, but I always wanted to be a young dad – and I was 26 when he was born. I want to spend as much time with him as possible.

And he doesn’t get in the way. A lot of people say it restricts your life or career, but I’m trying to dispel that myth. We visited Cairo and the pyramids with him last year and this summer we’re all going backpacking in south-east Asia for three-and-a-half weeks.