At ABPM Recruitment Ltd we meet many business professionals with interesting career stories – all are very enjoyable but some provide examples of the different paths that people take (planned or unplanned) to arrive at their career destination. Over the coming year we’ll be taking a look at some of these stories – in the first our MD, Rej Abraham, chats to Russell Baker ACA about his career.  In his self-deprecating style Russell talks about his successful career in corporate followed by venture capital-owned businesses Deb Group and Node 4.

1/. Why a career in accountancy and what was its appeal?

RB – Actually it was ‘anything but accountancy’ at the time of choosing a university course (this stemmed from the fact that my father was a partner in a decent sized practice in High Wycombe), although I was numerate and I did think that a career in ‘business’ would be attractive. At the end of university and like so many of my peers, I wanted a place in Anderson Consulting or one of the merchant banks (as they were called then). Sadly, no offers were forthcoming and based on the milk round my choices were between the ‘big eight’ accounting firms, Equitable Life in Aylesbury and a pensions investment firm. I felt that starting with one of the ‘big eight’ (KPMG in Milton Keynes in my case) was the way in which I could keep further options open.

2/. When did you know it was the right choice?

RB – To be honest I did enjoy the role at KPMG and was pretty good at it. I was on a fast-track path, worked on some good clients and also had a great opportunity of a mini-secondment spending two months in the Auckland office. After four years or so though I started to wonder if the wider business world would suit me better.

3/. What were you looking for in the roles you undertook?

RB – As above there was a ‘keeping options open’ theme to the KPMG role. This was also true for my first step into industry, with a logistics firm in Northampton, along with the conviction that this role and later ones would provide career progression and personal expansion. That firm was venture capital backed for a short period when I joined and that gave me an early feel for private equity. Also, in seven years there I saw a strong growth cycle followed quickly by a nearly as strong down cycle (which arose from a disruptive technology event). This stuck with me and I have looked to work at growing businesses since. The logistics business had a ‘long hours’ culture from the truck drivers up. This was amplified in the down cycle with initiatives around efficiency improvement and cost reduction (including people) and was not much fun. One particularly long day led to the game changing moment below.

After the logistics business I sought roles advertising equity potential so the route into private equity was set. Private equity/leveraged finance then became the established pattern, partly because investors and banks look for people with experience and partly because of lack of relevant skills for other roles e.g. in listed businesses or the public sector.

4/. Did the sector or activity of the business you join have a major influence in your thinking?

RB – Not particularly, save the growth aspect noted above and the feeling that the sector was interesting. In my case the move from logistics into a manufacturing environment with Deb Group seemed positive, especially given the international aspect and some intellectual property exposure.

5/. Hire a great team or build and develop your own team?

RB – I think perhaps both, although a strength for me has been the building and development of good teams. You need to hire well for this also, of course.

6/. What have you learned about the importance of the people who surround you?

RB – I would separate this into the immediate finance team (where the people who surround you are vital, but you have much more influence) and the wider management team. There I think the CFO needs to make an assessment of things like strengths and weaknesses, capability, level of support required, trustworthiness so that you can interact and deal with these colleague roles appropriately.

7/. In an entrepreneurial and/or corporate setting what is the CFO’s role?

RB – In my case it’s the entrepreneurial setting. It is often said that private equity backs management teams, although my experience is that private equity backs Chief Executives and the CEO then forms a management team around them, typically with a CFO very close. In this case the CFO’s role includes aspects such as professional and personal support of that CEO (for example the last call of the day should be CEO to CFO), a ‘no surprises’ approach (e.g. financial/liquid resources should be available, management accounts/board reports produced on time) and I think consistency/reliability is important also. The CEO/senior colleagues should probably (although the odd surprise never hurts!) be able to predict the CFO’s stance, even when it won’t be the stance they want to hear.

One mentor regularly said that it was not important to be liked in a CFO role, but it was very important to be respected. I don’t disagree with this as such (they very much lived by this), albeit I think it is possible to be respected and liked (especially through your conduct as CFO) and I would say I have tried to live to this.

8/. Any game changing moments in your career you would like to share?

RB – An ironic one, really in that after one very late night at the logistics business I was stopped for speeding on the way home. Arriving home, I resolved that ‘enough was enough’ and the next job I moved to was a Thursday advert in the Financial Times (remember that) just a few weeks later. The boys in blue carried out a classic good cop/bad cop routine on me that evening, but if I bumped into them again, I’d have to say thanks for the wake-up call.

Sometime later another odd one was where a possible financial covenants breach accelerated me taking on the top job, following on from the departure of a predecessor.

I’d say again about the ‘growth’ factor, although at this point I’d also add in high margins as well. Accountancy life tends to be much more fun in a growing high margin business than in the opposite.