Lunch and Learn: Financial fitness

I'm the founder and MD of The F Word Ltd and I've been running my own business for over 20 years. I'm on a deeply personal mission to help small busineses survive and build financial resilience. I'm a Chartered Management Accountant, experienced finance director, trainer and coach and I set up my business to solve the huge problem of small business failure in the UK. Most small companies just don't have the financial skills necesary to build a financially robust business - but these skills are easily learned when you ditch the jargon and put some passion into things! Back in the early ‘90s 3 things happened that changed the course of my life and set me on my journey to help businesses. First I lost my home, one I’d saved hard so I could buy at 18. At 21, with interest rates at 15% I was handing back the keys. Then the amazing business I worked for went bust overnight, in 3 years we’d turned it into a £10m success and now I had to make hundreds of people redundant. Finally I watched my parents lose their dream business, a hotel in Scotland, because of the recession. I needed answers. So I set out on a mission that still drives me to this day, almost 30 years later. My mission is to help business owners get the financial rewards, freedom and lifestyle they thought owning a business would give them, instead of a life of stress, financial worry and compromise. I’ve been working in finance, in and with small business for 30 years. I did my professional training with Northern Foods plc and NEXT plc. I then started and built a management accounting practice from 2000 to 2012, before selling it to set up The F Word.