Paul offers a rare blend of technical financial skills and practical business experience which clients find invaluable when seeking to develop or revive their businesses. Since 1997 Paul has assisted a number of firms, both privately and as a Business Link Business Adviser (1998-2008), and has tended to specialise in business start-ups and company turnarounds where he has worked with the management team to return the business to profit.Often described as a 'critical friend', Paul has developed a reputation of bringing clarity and logic to seemingly complicated situations, and to communicate technical financial issues in simple terms. This has included delivery of 'Finance for Non-Financial Managers' training for several organisations, including the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce (1997-2017).Paul qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant in 1982 and has experience in firms as diverse as Automotive Products, Assi, British Alcan, and Sony.In 1985 Paul was appointed Commercial Director and subsequently Manufacturing Director at a Unilever subsidiary in Gloucestershire where he worked with Dr John Ellis on the early development of what became the EFACS ERP system.He turned around the ailing £5m turnover business, and with his colleagues grew it to a very profitable £16m turnover/ 300 staff. Paul became Managing Director in 1990 following a successful management-buy-out where he raised £5.5m in venture capital.Before becoming a Business Adviser Paul worked on a number of business start ups including a plastic extrusions company which he started with colleagues in 1993 and sold to a Scandinavian group two years later. More recently, in July 2017, he disposed of a software business which he had started ten years earlier, to a multi-national software development company.Paul is a former chairman of the CIMA Members in Practice group for the South West and South Wales.Specialities: Business Planning, Business Startup, Business Turnaround, Accounting and ERP Systems