Netty Cooper Email & Phone Number

☛ www.ortongroup.co.uk ☏ 01902 894871 Celebrating its 25th year in 2016, Orton Group is an award-winning provider of electrical and mechanical design, installation and maintenance services across the West Midlands and beyond. With some of the industry’s top talent at the helm, Orton has grown from a one-man band in 1991, to a group of four companies with £multi-million revenues, 50 staff and 60-100 regular sub-contractors covering all domestic and commercial areas of electrical, mechanical and maintenance. Despite the numerous economic and industry challenges faced since its inception, Orton Group has matured and developed into one of the sector’s most valued and trusted providers, offering a genuine partnership to leading construction companies, local authorities, and private clients. Orton Group works across five primary sectors: commercial, industrial, rail, new build and social housing, and has been a lead contractor on some of the most prominent new build and refurbishment solutions in the West Midlands region. Our most significant contracts include: ☛ Wolverhampton Homes: £4M, 15-year strategic partnership to refurbish the mechanical and electrical components of approximately 50 social housing dwellings per week.☛ British Transport Police, Birmingham New Street Station: £1.8M project for the new build of state-of-the-art accommodation for the BTP. ☛ Milton Keynes Central Station: £350K mechanical and electrical installation, completed within three months, on behalf of London Midland and Buckingham Group Contracting. ☛ Shelton Hospital, Shrewsbury: £800K new build of a psychiatric hospital village development for South Staffordshire Healthcare NHS Trust in partnership with BAM Construction and NG Bailey.

Originally recruited to analyse electrical contract valuations and applications on behalf of contract managers, the role rapidly developed to oversee repair, maintenance and mechanical functions, including wages administration, valuation creation and query resolution. I led a team of 16, dispersed across five sites in Shropshire and the Midlands. Highlights included: ☛ Identified £36K in lost revenues within the first three months through meticulous analysis of all live contracts. ☛ Developed a strong relationship with a key social housing client to secure £3.5M debt recovery for works across thousands of properties. ☛ Hand-selected as a super-user for a bespoke software system that provided real time accounting and automatic calculation of revenue to provide business clarity and visibility. I ensured 12 £multi-million contracts were transitioned to the system within six months and conducted training across the division.

Hired initially as an Accounts Controller, the role rapidly progressed to accountability for all financial and operational aspects for the business. This was an all-encompassing role with oversight of banking, factoring, HR, forecasting, debt collection, warehouse management, month and year-end accounts, with a team of 30 across warehouse, operations and accounts functions. Highlights included: ☛ Established budgets across all functional areas to control spend and change purchasing behaviour. ☛ Abolished costly practices, reduced debtor days by more than half; resulting savings enabled the business to expand into new premises. ☛ Delivered additional annual revenues of £2.5M with the introduction of distribution and storage facilities for a key client; developed strong relationships to leverage continual business. ☛ Maximised usage of the company’s IT system, resulting in significant efficiencies in route planning, resource optimisation and vehicle tracking.

Hired to establish the accounts function from scratch, including: bank reconciliations, payroll, VAT returns, communications with Inland Revenue, budget control, purchase and sales ledgers and month / year-end bookkeeping. Highlights included: ☛ Collaborated with a software design company to lay the foundations and framework for sophisticated, bespoke software written for the business. The implementation was so successful that the software company was able to add this software to its product suite. ☛ Rapidly established the credit worthiness of a fledgling business to bolster lender confidence and empower growth opportunities.