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If you consider what sets companies like eBay, Alibaba, Netflix, Google, Starbucks, Apple, Cisco and Dell apart from other companies, their ability to continuously innovate and create high growth will probably come high on your list.

So should the fact they’ve all successfully transitioned from start up to scale up status without losing their ability to be dynamic and entrepreneurial.

Then there’s the fact they’ve helped create thousands of full-time and part-time jobs throughout the world.

Congratulations to our client Kent Catering Service Limited who have won the Sheppey Business of the Year two years running for 2017 and 2018.

Kent Catering Service Limited have continued to grow their business off the back of their commitment to a localised and timely service provision. The business continues to progress in a sector dominated by larger national players, with their key differentiator being their quality of service delivery.

At the 2017 Swale Business Awards,

The idea of hiring even a part-time FD may seem to some SMEs a bit OTT—like paying Quentin Tarantino to make a 90-second home page video or booking Wembley Stadium for the company’s five-a-side friendly football match.

But for companies whose ambition is to get into and survive the coveted scale-up phase, hiring a part-time FD makes perfect sense. They know that they’re getting a finance veteran, someone with big business experience, who can provide the guidance they need to grow rapidly and help them to avoid the costly mistakes that so many ambitious SMEs make as they attempt to move into the Big League.

Congratulations to our client Marlin PR who has celebrated their 10 year anniversary. Marlin PR had this to say:

Like any business, we started our journey with big ambitions and a bold vision. We wanted to shape an industry that was being radically transformed with the growth of digital and help carve out a new normal for brands seeking to integrate the best or tradition and digital comms. Tech was our heartland, our passion and reason for bounding into work in the mornings.

You might think a Finance Director’s role is confined to traditional finance activities, but today’s FD (or CFO) can do so much more than count beans.

In the past, an FD’s responsibilities might have been confined to high-level accounting such as providing timely financial statements and monthly management reports, managing investments and expenses, monitoring cash flow, and managing risk. But as the business landscape has become more complex over the past decade, the role of an FD has changed.

On Saturday 21st July we (The FD Centre) took part in our first competitive football tournament. We were invited to the 7 aside tournament by our partner and sponsor, Barclays. Money raised from the event was donated to the West Ham foundation which will help run a number of activities for the local community, including programs provided by the Premier League, and children’s soccer schools.

The venue and one of the draws to the event was that it was being held at West Ham training ground.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already transforming the way in which financial services companies are doing business.

More and more of them are using AI to process information on their customers, cut costs, save time, monitor behaviour patterns, assess credit quality, automate client interactions, analyse markets, assess data quality and detect fraud.

A pwc Digital IQ 2017 survey found that 72% of business decision makers believe AI will be the business advantage of the future.[1] About 52% said they’re currently making “substantial investments” in AI,

You shouldn’t be surprised to discover that Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Hugh Jackman, Gary Oldman among many other Oscar-winning actors and actresses bear a grudge against Finance Directors.

It’s easy to understand why. For although the likes of Streep and Oldman have achieved fame, fortune and critical acclaim, they can usually only inhabit one role at a time. They take it on for a few months and then move on to the next.

One of our clients Nottingham-based Leonard Design Architects is celebrating after securing a spot on the prestigious AJ100 list for the second year in a row and jumping up 18 places to rank at number 82.

Published annually by the Architects’ Journal since 1995, the AJ100 ranks the largest architectural practices in the UK. It is largely regarded as a key measure of success and the industry’s most authoritative list.

Leonard Design is an award-winning global architectural practice headquartered in Nottingham,