Chartered Accountant · CA(SA)CFO to growing businesses, now building with AI
30 years in finance across the UK and South Africa: on the lender’s side, in corporate finance and as CFO to growth businesses through funding, acquisitions and exit.
Two businesses, each for a different stage of growth
Connexive
CFO-led finance transformation for businesses preparing for scale, funding, acquisition or exit.
An experienced CFO setting the direction, with a FinOps team securing the foundation underneath: management reporting, forecasting, transaction readiness and the month-end close.
connexive.uk → For UK tradespeopleRate & Record
AI tools for the money side of your trade.
Free tools and practical AI guides for pricing, record keeping and Making Tax Digital: a start-date checker, a software finder, and day rate and margin calculators. I designed the method; AI agents run it. AI-generated guidance, not advice.
rateandrecord.co.uk →Building AI tools is also why I know where AI stops and a CFO starts.
Career timeline
Work across the finance function of SME and growth businesses in the UK and South Africa, on both the debt and equity sides of capital raising: growth and acquisition finance, mezzanine, buy-outs and a JSE listing, and the commercial execution that follows each of them.
Grant Thornton
Articles · Johannesburg
Articles and qualification as a Chartered Accountant, CA(SA).
Cargill Financial Markets
Relative value equity desk · London
I relocated to London straight out of articles to set up a relative value equity trading desk trading South African equity markets.
Propertyfinder
Head of Business Development · London
Second employee, joining the incoming CEO at a business that had just taken venture capital backing. Propertyfinder was one of the first UK property portals, and was acquired in 2001 by Asserta Holdings, the property venture backed by CGNU plc.
PI Capital
Corporate finance adviser · London
Corporate advisory and capital raising for early-stage SME growth businesses. Mandates concluded include Fushi, VirtualIT and Bodas.
Internet and online ventures
With Moshe Adir · London
A range of internet and online businesses, and the start of a working relationship with Moshe Adir that continued over the following fifteen years.
Investec Bank
Growth and Acquisition Finance · Johannesburg
Funding for owner-managed and entrepreneurial SME businesses: growth and acquisition debt, mezzanine and equity finance, structured to support expansion, buy-outs and shareholder transactions.
Independent advisory and interim CFO
Amecor · Renergen · Avacare · Discover Digital · Mykagami · Vegas Kings
Interim CFO, transaction structuring and commercial development for growth businesses: the buy-out at Amecor, the JSE listing of Renergen in 2015, and mandates at Avacare Health, Discover Digital and Mykagami.
Running alongside those mandates, the partnership with Moshe Adir of Vegas Kings across a series of internet ventures, first in London and later across both markets, covering the structuring, financial control and commercial strategy behind each one.
MIT Sloan School of Management
Digital Business Strategy
Formal training in platform economics, network effects and subscription business models, and what each of them does to revenue quality, margin and cash conversion. The essays and the video series for small business owners came out of it.
Connexive
Founder · Founded July 2020
CFO-led finance transformation for growth-focused UK SMEs, with its own FinOps team. Finance functions ready for scale, funding, acquisition or exit.
Rate & Record
Founder · AI tools for trades
Free AI tools and guides for UK tradespeople: pricing, record keeping and Making Tax Digital. Designed by a Chartered Accountant and run by AI agents.