Baby on the way? Why not leave your job and set up a business?!
It all started back in 2003 as I toiled away in Birkenhead working for a shipping company. It wouldn't be too far from the truth to say that I hated it. Irritating colleagues, terrible (frankly dangerous) working conditions and a nagging feeling that I might have taken a wrong turning moving back to my home city after years away.
Having started up a dotcom and worked in a London record company - yes, with famous people, more on that later - for much of the late 90s/early 00s I was still yet to qualify as an accountant too. Believe me, I was not a happy camper. Having had a fairly glamorous life in London I found myself back in Liverpool looking for a new challenge.
So I got my head down and decided I was going to pass my remaining exams, much to the annoyance of my immediate boss who wasn't qualified himself. And things were going well until the night of the annual shipbrokers dinner over in Liverpool. It was a black tie event on a Friday evening full of important people from that particular industry and the owner of our shipping company threw a lot of money at it every year.
It's fair to say that, so far anyway, it was the longest walk of my life. No job, baby on the way. Oh yeah, and wife self-employed, did I mention that? So no maternity pay either. Half of me wanted to walk back and say sorry, half of me was, frankly, over the moon and a little tiny bit of me felt very, very foolish. It was a very strange feeling, but then at that very moment I thought sod it, I'll start my own business.
The very place where Mrs. W was about to give birth! It was a complete no-brainer. I ended up spending a very happy six months there under the wing of Dave Renouf, the Deputy Director of Finance, learning about every aspect of NHS finance and I'm not ashamed to say that I loved it. Still do. The opportunity to get up every day and help squeeze more care out of the budget and make everything more efficient really, really appeals to me in a way that counting Shania Twain's royalties never did. And yes, I really have done both...
We had a lot of help and support on the way though and I think it's worth giving a shout-out to some very influential customers and business partners, so thank you:
, Programme Budgeting, Business Cases
or any other strategic financial project work we are a partner that can make a real difference to your finance department.
“As a newly appointed Director of Finance Assista provided me with an extremely prompt review of the story my Trust’s LTFM was giving. In view of the deadlines required by the FT application process this was an invaluable reality check for me”.
The Trust has worked with James Wilson and his colleagues from Assista over the last 3 years on a number of individual projects. In particular, they have assisted with the development of the Long Term Financial Plan for our Foundation Trust application. James and his colleagues are very approachable and have provided invaluable assistance and support to the Trust in what was anticipated to be a complex process. The in depth experience provided by James’ company has afforded the necessary level of assurance required by the Trust in taking this model forward. I have no hesitation in recommending highly Assista’s services to colleagues within the NHS.
