I am CFO (European SVP) responsible for Finance, HR, IT and the Facilities Service teams across the SMG European Business. SMG is the worldwide leader in venue management, operation and marketing. The worldwide venues number well in excess of 200, including international stadia, arenas, exhibition centres and theatres. Within Europe we operate the Manchester Arena (consistently in the top 3 busiest arenas in the world), first direct Arena in Leeds, Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle and the Konig-Pilsner Arena in Oberhausen Germany, plus a number of theatres, including the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. We also own CGC, a significant event catering and hospitality business in the North of England.

Leisure Connection is a c£50m turnover leisure out-sourcing FM business running 60+ facilities and employing c2500 team members. It operates mainly with local authorities in long term contracts, but has a growing private sector gym division. Main objectives since July 2012 have been working with the Executive Chairman to stabilise the company’s revenue and profit base by completing the introduction of new trust structures into the contracts and negotiating contract extensions, in addition considerable work has been done to re-establish the business’s proposition and reposition it in the marketplace. This has included the rebranding of the business and a major restructuring of the support infrastructure.

A c.£150m turnover Group of 6 companies and employing c.4000 team members, 3 with turnovers in excess of £40m. The Group’s activities included out-sourced FM, service, manufacturing and wholesale/distribution businesses. Responsible for financial strategy, financial and budgetary control and treasury within the Group and involved significant liaison with the investors and executive chairman. Put in place structured management approach, budgeting, planning and operational reviews.Following a group strategic review, we executed a very complex trade and assets sale of 4 of the Gaming businesses to a major international player in the Gaming industry. The transaction was significantly complicated by the heavily leveraged position of the Group and the deal also required Monopolies Commission approval. The transaction was successfully completed in July 12 and secured the future of all the team members of the 4 businesses.

Re-joined Leisure Connection to work with the new CEO to turn around the business. The first priority was to rebuild the finance team following an unsuccessful 150 mile relocation of the function, when the processes and team collapsed. The stabilisation and rebuilding of the finance team was successfully performed, which included the appointment of a Head of Finance and restructuring of the team.The turnaround involved reviews of business processes at locations and Head Office. This included improving the sales processes, resetting cost levels and introducing rigorous budgetary control. This was performed without compromising service delivery to our customers. A loss of £4m was turned into a profit of £1m.

A new role in the Group to work with the Group CFO on exit strategies and potential transactions, plus provide, inter alia, added support on treasury, budgetary and financial control around the Group.In 2006, the Group missed an amortisation payment on its debt, which was the catalyst for significant change in the Group’s Equity and Debt providers and the Group Board Members.Working with Kroll and other external advisors, a significant period of my time was spent working with the team on forecasting the effect of the re-engineering of the businesses. Critical to the Group especially at this time was cash flow and ensuring the Group had the funds to continue, whilst the turnaround plans were developed and implemented and new investors had been secured. I was responsible for Group cash flow management and all associated decisions.The turnaround of the businesses was successful and cash flow was maintained until new investors were found and cash was injected into the Group.During this period, I was a leading member of the exec team involved in the acquisition of a major competitor of Gamestec, which doubled the size of the business.

Promoted into the CFO role from within the Group. The business was c£100m turnover, 100+sites and 5000+ employees. Notable achievements during this period were :• My appointment followed a merger with a major competitor of LC. Successfully created a new finance team and introduced new processes to cope with the growth of sites from the previous 50 to over 100+• In 2002 the Group delisted and became PE owned. The CEO and myself worked on the forecasts and fronted the business during the successful Public to Private process.• Working with the CEO and Ops director, moved Ebit from £2m to £6m, mainly based on producing model operating hours and management structures across the sites, reducing the £40m payroll cost.

Responsible for a finance team of 40, within this c£100m turnover service business within the Gaming sector.Major achievement was integration of 6 separate divisional finance teams into this 40 strong central team.