Richard Wyatt Email & Phone Number

Peterborough, Gb

An experienced Finance Director, I provide Part-time Finance Director services and strategic advice to law firms, while working with fellow consultants in advising law firm managers on management reporting, appropriate KPIs, partner reward schemes, staff bonus schemes, efficient debt collection processes, cash flow projections, identification of merger opportunities, assistance with financial due diligence and managing the merger process.

East Of England:North

Formerly helping:Entrepreneurs, CEOs or Managing Directors running an ambitious company with fast growth potential and looking to build companies to ensure they got the very highest price for it when/if they decided to sell. Ambitious companies looking to grow quickly need to build a quality finance function led by a senior Finance Director with ‘big business’ experience, but that person does not necessarily need to be fulltime. The FD Centre business model allows growing businesses to take on a top quality finance director for a fraction of the cost of appointing one on a full-time basis. The goal is to help busy CEOs and MDs free up time to grow their businesses while the FD Centre's FD takes on the management of the finance function.

Cambridge, United Kingdom

I established the company to provide specialist advisory services to law firms and other professional services and knowledge-based businesses, with particular expertise in helping them identify their strategic direction as well as putting the right building blocks in place to achieve their business and personal goals.Other areas of support include strategy development, effective leadership, profit improvements and securing successful business partnerships. Select Achievements: • Acting as Trustee of an £11m AUM, 160-member pension fund since 2011. I work closely with the trustee board to ensure the scheme stays solvent and recently contributed to the appointment of a new actuary.• Appointed to transform the business model of a household national claims management business, creating a new structure and brand to enable claims handling in response to industry and regulatory changes. • Developed a bulk debt portfolio management model to unlock improved cost assessment for portfolio acquisitions, facilitating greater visibility and forecasting of value. • Regularly engaged as a lecturer on law firm finance at the Law Society of England & Wales from 2011 to 2014. I received superb feedback from attendees and was often approached to visit law firms as a speaker.

Peterborough, Cambridge & London,

In 2015, I was appointed to lead the financial strategy for this multi-site commercial law firm, overseeing a team of 11 with responsibility for budget, cashflow, financial performance and reporting and compliance with Solicitors Accounts Rules.Select Achievements: • Conducted comprehensive financial due diligence to facilitate a successful merger with GRM law.• Increased billable hours targets from 960 per annum to 1260 per annum, aligning activity more closely to the firm’s capabilities and driving up income. This subsequently doubled partnership profit within three years.• Identified and resolved significant accounting errors and redrafted an erroneous Partnership Tax Return, removing capital receipt for building sale from the firm’s trading income. • Led negotiations with service suppliers to optimise contracts, creating more value and stability. Additionally, I completed the lease renewals for the London and Cambridge offices.

London, United Kingdom

During this time, I introduced and oversaw firm’s budget, cashflow projections and statutory accounts, ensuring total compliance with SAR, VAT, PAYE and internal regulation while regularly liaising with bankers and auditors. Select Achievements: • Identified a merger opportunity with Blake Morgan and spearheaded the transaction lifecycle, including due diligence and negotiations, facilitating execution and successful merging shortly after departure. • Negotiated with bank to boost returns from client money by 400%. Eliminated risk of penalties from VAT and PAYE inspections and significantly reduced debt, recovering almost 50% of owed amount.• Introduced more robust expenditure controls across the firm to slash variable overhead costs by 10% and rolled out a performance-based profit-sharing strategy at partner-level to promote improved output.

Northamptonshire & Milton Keynes

As Finance Director for this £10m turnover regional law firm, I achieved a 400% increase in Treasury returns and tendered new accountants and auditors to reduce cost by 40%. Additionally, I converted the firm from General Partnership to LLP and embedded stronger reporting tools to identify largest profit areas, enabling strategic resource alignment for continued profitability despite the financial crisis.

During my time with Grant Thornton UK, I forged strong client partnerships to generate up to £450,000 in fees per annum, in addition to leading the Company Secretarial Bureau for five years. I was also seconded to UK Government for three years to assist with SME Finance Policy.

In this role, I structured and strengthened DTI initiatives, including: o Small Firms Loan Guaranteeo SMART Schemeo Business Angels Networkso Regional Venture Capital Fundso UK High Tech Fundo Community Investment Finance Institutionso Early Growth Fundso Investment Readiness

At Baker Tilley, I ran a 30-client portfolio comprising solicitors and other professional services. I conducted RICS investigations for disciplinary hearings, financial viability reviews for banks and financial due diligence for mergers.

In this period, I collaborated with patent and trademark agents, solicitors and agricultural processing businesses to manage organisation renewals.

Bsc (Hons), Agricultural Economics

Pgce, Economics

Learned how people learn and to teach, which has remained useful throughout my career.