EmergeONE is built on a roster of amazing finance pro’s. People are the cornerstone of the finance stacks we build for growth companies so we thought it only fitting that we’d introduce that team. First up is Joe Newbold, Joe’s been working with some amazing growth companies over the last year and this week we interviewed him.

Hi Joe, tell us about you?

I started out as an accountant pretty young in practice, as most do. Then went through to my first role in industry which was with a tech firm of only 20 to 25 people in size, it was VC backed and that position excited me at the time because coming out of practice, it felt like I could add value and really do something that an external adviser can’t do for a business and then it went on from there really. I went through a number of companies that were high growth, some of them often doubling in turnover every year. But I had a distinct gap in my CV for larger company experience when it comes to technical reporting and IFRS so I took the plunge to go back into practice for a couple of years, and then came out and ventured into a few FTSE 100s for about 18 months or so. 

All of those roles were only ever contract positions and that space is what interested me rather than trying to stay on as a permanent employee, where you often feel trapped in a position if you’re on three months notice or you’re not able to make the impact that you feel you can make because you need to go through a very large decision making tree. 

It was at this point that I was presented with the opportunity to be a portfolio financial controller with EmergeONE, I jumped at the chance. It was new for me and it was new for the people I was working with. And one of the things that really excites me about this is you are in a position both as a contractor, as a financial controller, and as a portfolio FC, to make quick decisions that impact a business almost immediately. You often have that level of authority and say, whether it comes to bid processes, whether it comes to forecasting, cash flow, what to spend money on, know what customers to sell to or whether to turn down sales because of margin. 

When you’re looking at systems and automation, you can get involved in absolutely every single part of the business. And that’s basically why I do it, it’s much more rewarding than having that full time position, or the position in a larger business where you’re not able to make the changes that you really feel you should be able to make.

So it’s not just about your personal freedom it’s about the impact you have?

Yeah, absolutely. But it doesn’t come without its drawbacks. FM or FC level is very different to being a portfolio FD. An FD is in the position where they’re not always expected to get their hands dirty, and they’re often there for specific strategic advice. 

Whether or not to raise capital or taking the company through a growth period, or being an ear to the CEO or the MD or whatever. In those positions you can do one or two days a week and potentially switch off. With the FC and FM positions, even if you’re not there, you’re still there. Because there’s questions around invoices. There’s questions why a new system launches and isn’t working. There’s questions why an API link has suddenly broken. So it’s not just as easy as saying I will do two days a week for two clients. It is five days a week for every client. And that’s the only thing I would say as my word of advice or caution for anyone wanting to be a portfolio FC, in that there’s always something to do for every client every day of the week.

Does that put pressure on you to manage those expectations?

You can have back to back conference calls all day for four or five hours. And you’ll switch from client A to client B to client C, back to client A and then again to client B, and it is literally being able to turn it on and off immediately. And then at 5 or 6pm do work for all three clients ready for the next couple of days. So don’t get me wrong, every day can be a 16 hour day and when it’s busy, it’s really busy.

How do you ensure successful outcomes for the companies you work with?

Ensuring success is massively about stakeholder management. Every time somebody asks for something, ask them when they want it back. In a permanent position, people who work for a big company, people ask for something, they think they want it there and then. Often they don’t need it though. Smaller companies, unless it’s really critical, because founders and MD’s are normally aware that they’re so busy, the timelines are often more realistic. 

So it’s very much about asking what people want and when they want it. And if people ask for something don’t just assume that’s what they want. Often, business founders and entrepreneurs they’re not necessarily financial and they’re not operational or systems experts. So when somebody asks for something, make sure you ask the right questions to elicit that the information they’re asking for is representative of the task or the solution that they are after.

That’s a hard balance, giving people what they need and want aren’t always the same?

Sometimes I’ve been asked questions where the CEO might think it’s three hours work. And after a telephone conversation, a 10 minute chat, that was it, it was over. I didn’t even have to do anything. So you don’t necessarily need the detail, all the way through the chain, if D is always fixed as point D, then actually, you know, by virtue A, B and C are going to be roughly right. So rather than checking the whole value chain, or whatever it may be, so often it’s about just managing those things. I always say also being in a portfolio position, it’s very easy to get used to emails as everybody does now, or IMs. It’s far more efficient to pick up the phone and ring all three or four clients every day for 10 minutes and ask them if they need anything. So you can then start to plan two or three days ahead. Often, if I ring somebody on a Monday or Tuesday, ask them if they’re okay. See if they want anything. They say no, I’m left alone till Friday.

Beyond the founders how do you integrate with the in-house team, especially in the current working environment?

So some of the companies I’m working with are completely remote. And those that are completely remote, I make sure that I place far more emphasis on calling people and arranging more frequent video calls than I would normally. Those clients where I am now remote but I used to work with a team in the office I still make the effort to ring people rather than just emailing them. For me ringing people is a far more efficient working pattern than solely relying on responses to emails and trying to manage things that way.

Tell us a bit more about the timing, when are you typically brought into a business?

It’s been a real mixture and the roles are varied. There are proactive, firefighting or hold the fort roils. Where somebody realises that the company is going to grow bigger and they want finance to come in and make sure things don’t break. That’s rare. I would say, particularly in the SME or high growth sector, finance is seen as a cost, it’s not a revenue generator. 

If you’re small, and the business is only five or six people, often the CEO knows where they’re spending money. So you can’t really save any money. The only thing you could do is improve efficiencies where there is a massive opportunity cost for everybody else in the business to do what they’re specialists at. 

But generally speaking, that’s rare within a startup or high growth business. The firefighting is more common. In my experience, businesses finances tend to creek around 2.5million to 10million. And then somewhere between 15 and 20 because the previous set of processes isn’t able to scale with the current operations, and the volume the business is churning. 

Don’t get me wrong if it’s one massive contract win at 10 million pounds, that’s different. But if you’re looking at, generally speaking the same business model, there are rough points when you may get bought in either to aid what was an FM in there in the first place or an FC who has been with a business for a number of years. 

Or you’ve been bought in and previously they’ve had a part time bookkeeper or something like that. That’s more common. And then there’s a whole before position where an incumbent has left and you may just be asked to come in for three or four months, change a few things but not change very much until they find the next person. 

Sometimes they don’t find somebody and sometimes you’re able to make changes so quickly that they’ve decided, in fact, the contract or portfolio FC works quite well for them and they keep you on. But there is always a risk that if you’re only doing two or three days a week, then as the company grows, they can outgrow you. And they will need someone full time. And unless you’re willing to be that person, then effectively you lose that revenue stream and you have to go and backfill it with another client.

What would you say the difference is between contracting and portfolio? What advice would you give to someone who’s thinking about going into or starting a portfolio career?

For both portfolio and contracting you have the same very small length of time to become familiar with the business, but contracting is typically for a fixed term whereas portfolio can be very open ended. As a permanent employee you may get given grace for two or three months to learn the ins and outs. If you’re going to be a good contract or good portfolio, I reckon you’ve got about 14 days. Prove that you can learn the business inside out and show that you can make a difference. I think you’ve only got that length of time, because by then somebody could have paid you what can seem like a steep day rate. And if you’re not on the scale, and there’s somebody else out in the market then it’s very easy to to replace you with only a week’s notice. Being a portfolio FC, sometimes you might only have a matter of days to get used to a business and start making changes because they expect immediate impacts in in that kind of position and you know there’s always a heavier workload towards the start of any assignment whether it be contracting or portfolio and once you’ve put the graft in your job can be as easy or as hard as as you’ve made it really.

In my mind the most important aspect is ensuring I have what I need to drive success? When you go in to a business what do I need from from those around me to make sure I can deliver. IT’s the exact opposite to what you get in a large business and that you can make decisions in a large business within a very small set of parameters. I think within a smaller company, you need the authority to be able to tell people whether they can or can’t do something. And also, how much money you have in order to make the changes you need to make. And then you’re allowed to go away and do it within a certain remit. 

The majority of the instances that I’ve had, as long as you don’t break anything that currently works well, then everything else you can do what you need to do to make sure that the finances and the operations and the business doesn’t fail.