Myself

Born and raised in England, I moved to the Netherlands in 2003 and live near Leiden with my 2 dogs.

I discovered accounting at University and immediately took to it like a duck to water. It became one of the topics I majored in for the European Business Studies degree and I then went on to become a Chartered Accountant with ICAEW and am now a Fellow Chartered Accountant.

I soon realised that my enjoyment was not so much in pure auditing and checking others’ work, but I wanted to be at the heart of a company and be responsible for the numbers. After 2 years working for a Swedish Paper Sacks company, I took a role as Management Accountant for the chemicals division of AkzoNobel in UK and remained with that organization for just over 20 years.

In that time I had 6 roles, 11 bosses and worked at 5 different locations in 2 different countries. I moved from the chemicals division to the powder coatings division and then to Corporate. In 2018 I was transferred back to the chemicals division, which became Nouryon and was sold to private equity. Here too I had 2 roles and 2 bosses.

My functions have been both as an accountant and controller and I was also Investor Relations Manager for many years which was more of a strategic role. I am precise, analytical, committed, and structured.

I have a strong knowledge of IFRS and am confident both with inputting financials (using systems such as SAP and Hyperion) for actual and budgeting purposes, as well as interpreting and presenting the results to both financial and non-financial senior executives.

There is nothing I like more than helping with professionally written policy documents and ensuring there are strong controls in place.

Finance Professional

Coach

Encouraging team members to develop skills and grow within the company gave me a lot of positive energy and I often found myself being approached for advice, or as a sounding board for ideas. In turn, this fuelled my passion both within AkzoNobel, where I had a link with the Finance Academy to present and encourage fellow accountants in their development, as well as externally where I became a mentor with Giving Back and more recently with Henley Business School.

I graduated from Henley Business School, UK with a PCEC (Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching) which is triple accredited with the ICF, AC and EMCC and have enrolled on the PGCert in Coaching for Behavioural Change, starting January 2023. I also followed a Positive Intelligence course, run by Shirzad Chamine and Bill Carmody and went on to become a Certified Positive Intelligence Coach (CPQC). I am a current member of the Assocation of Coaching and  an associate of the Self-Worth academy  

But coaching is not about me. It’s about you