A qualified Accountant and experienced Finance Director, Kate has a strong commercial background with over 25 years experience working for, and with a number of businesses from many different sectors including legal, care home, recruitment, printing, e-commerce, electrical contractors, clothing design/retail, pub/restaurant & many more.

In particular Kate has specialist experience in the Care Home & Legal sector who both have their own specialist requirements in relation to how the Finance functions work, not to mention the rest of the business.

Kate has excellent people skills and her ability to empathise with people at all levels enables her to work with people throughout a business, be them the Managing Director or hands on with Operational staff.  She has the ability to assess a business rapidly and immediately see where she can help you turn things around, be it through investment in time with your teams, motivating & training, or assessing the position of the business through the development of management reporting & forecasting.  Kate’s energy, passion and excellent project management skills give her the ability to ensure that everyone keeps their eye on the ball and that she delivers results to timescales that ensure you meet both business and personal goals.

Kate is described by others as :

• Enthusiastic about what she does – it’s infectious!
  
• no problem is too big
  
• a positive ‘can do’ manner
  
• throw an obstacle in Kate’s way and sit back and watch her manoeuvre round it like it was never there!
  
• I love Kate’s no nonsense, straight talking approach!
  
• even when we’re having a bad day, Kate has the drive and enthusiasm to ensure that she meets her objectives by ensuring we meet ours!
  
• Kate has exceeded our expectations ……. what more could we ask for…..

Key Sector Experience

Legal Sector:
Kate has over 10 years experience within the sector.  She spent 7 years working as a Senior Finance Manager at Addleshaw Goddard during which time she was a key member of the teams responsible for the integration of 2 mergers, the implementation of the Elite system and the building of a Case Management system.  More recently she has been working with Chadwick Lawrence LLP, Project Managing their Finance system implementation, training and mentoring their staff and building relationships between the Finance team and the Fee Earners and Support Staff.  The Finance team are often under utilised.  Whilst they need to be there to process the hundreds of transactions, they have alot to offer, adding value to the business. 

Care Home Sector:
Over the last few years Kate has worked with a multiple care home group in Yorkshire and has been responsible for re-engineering the Finance function, including setting up their Finance systems, streamlining the invoicing & cash collection process and building a management accounting process to help measure the performance of the business.  She has also been involved in the due diligence process during sales of a number of the homes.

As part of her role here, Kate identified 'unaccounted for, missing debtors' of over £500,000 which resulted in her setting up a Special Task Force to collect the unaccounted for debt.  Kate's tenacity and commitment to collecting the debt resulted in a significant cash inflow into the business representing 96% of the £500,000 with only a small amount having to be written off.  As part of this process Kate set up key controls and procedures to ensure that debtors could never go missing again.....

Interests

In her spare time Kate likes horse racing and greyhound racing and has a number of horses & dogs in training.  Spot the racing colours below!  She also loves to spend time with her veteran racehorse, Fred.

Other hobbies & interests include reading, spending time with family & friends, all of her pets, and her racing greyhounds.

She also has an active involvement with a number of local charities including The West Yorkshire Forget me Not Trust, Retired Greyhound Trust & Cats Protection.

She also supports a number of other local & national charities including animals supporting people & animal welfare.  These include Guide Dogs for the Blind & Hearing dogs for Deaf People, looking after dogs in their later years and HEROS, who rehabiliate and retrain ex-racehorses.  If you would like to learn more about any of these organisations, and how you may also be able to help and support them, feel free to get in touch at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Kate's 2012 Charity Challenge for HEROS and Kirkwood Hospice.....

"My challenge during 2012 is to visit the 31 English racecourses (on race days) that I haven't yet visited. During this time I will be driving over 11,500 miles and will spend over £3,000 at the fuel pump! This will all be covered personally by me (haven't worked out how many hours I will spend travelling yet but hoping there's not too many 'sat' in traffic and that I can stay on the move!)

The racecourses I need to visit as part of my challenge during the year are listed below and I am pleased to report that to date I have attended both Huntingdon & Hereford & had very nice days on both occassions! I would like to thank John Powell of EPDS Racing and Darren Cook & team at Hereford Races for their kind support to date.

31 Racecourses :

Aintree - Ascot - Bath - Brighton - Cartmel - Chester - Epsom - Exeter - Fakenham - Folkestone - Fontwell - Goodwood - Hereford - Huntingdon - Kelso - Kempton - Ludlow - Newbury - Newmarket - Newton Abbot - Plumpton - Salisbury - Sandown - Sedgefield - Stratford - Taunton - Towcester - Uttoxeter - Wincanton - Windsor - Worcester

I would like to thank everyone who has already been supportive of my mission to attend the courses and raise money for 2 very worthy causes - HEROS (Homing Ex-Racehorse Organisation Scheme) www.heroscharity.org and Kirkwood Hospice in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire www.kirkwoodhospice.co.uk  I would also like to thank everyone in advance of their support in the future and very much hope I can take a number of you along to the racecourses with me to experience the thrills of horse-racing (you are all welcome - just let me know!) and hopefully we can pick a few winners too and help the charities further!

During 2012 I will also be visiting 'old favourite' racecourses which ar not on the 'to do' list including York, Cheltenham, Haydock, Beverley, Wetherby & Southwell to name a few, and would welcome their support during my mission too. All help very much appreciated!

Please keep 'checking in' to my Just Giving pages below - ALL DONATIONS WELCOMED -  to see how the next 12 months pan out!"

http://www.justgiving.com/kirkwoodracecoursechallenge

http://www.justgiving.com/racecoursechallenge

SPONSORSHIP WELCOMED:

I would like to thank Liz Devine of Simply Devine Specialist Hat Shop in Tadcaster (www.simplydevine.co.uk) for her kind sponsorship of my headwear for the next 12 months during my challenge! I shall add photos to the site as we go so you can see what beautiful hats Simply Devine have!

If anyone else would like to offer their support through sponsorship I would love to discuss this opportunity with you further. Please get in touch with my at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Forward Ladies Women in Business Awards

Kate was shortlisted for the 2011 Forward Ladies Start Up Woman in Business award.  The Awards ceremony took place at the New Century Pavilion at Elland Road on 14th October 2011.  "I am absolutely over the moon to have been shortlisted for this award.  I have been a member of Forward Ladies for 5 years now and the network is central to my business.  I have met many friends and business colleagues through the network and am very much looking forward to the 14th!  Forward Ladies events are always inspiring and enjoyable and to get to this stage is amazing."