Hello and welcome to my blog. I am a CIMA-qualified chartered management accountant, systems consultant and project lead for finance, business and ecommerce systems. My CV is rich with twenty years’ financial management experience across a wide variety of business sectors and sizes, most recently as Head of Finance / Financial Controller within international publishing.
In 2016 I decided to take a step back from a traditional employee-based role to allow me to widen my interests and pursue a portfolio of personal, professional and academic projects. I am a firm believer in intentionally prioritising meaning and value – both in life and in business – rather than blindly following others’ expectations and doing this ‘the way things are meant to be done’. So I moved over to part-time, portfolio and consulting roles, which freed up time to explore new avenues and grapple with bigger, more meaningful problems than the ones we usually get to handle in corporate business settings.
These days I’m busy architecting a new kind of autonomous career, one that’s led by values and measured as much in positive human benefit as it is in $’s and £’s.
Continuous learning, collaboration and technological innovation are guiding ideas for me in this next phase of my career. As we head deeper into the creative economy I believe these foci will be prime factors in our success (or failure). As the problems we face grow ever-larger and more complex, and the changes come ever more rapidly, we need to develop new ways of responding to uncertainty, and the risks and opportunities it brings. (And be able to grasp and leverage the new technologies which will allow us, our businesses and our economies to thrive and grow in the coming decades.)
This blog is my platform to reflect upon my learnings along the way. Expect it to be free-form and wide-ranging across systems, technology and professional interests, all with a strong slant towards autonomous careers, and 21st century technology, business and leadership.
My main study and research interest at the moment are centred on:
• Artificial intelligence
• Machine learning
• Natural language processing
• Intelligent agents
• Programming languages (Python, R, SQL)
• Data science/analytics
• Digital and autonomous business systems
If any of these projects or ideas sound interesting, do please connect. I look forward to seeing how we can collaborate and create mutual value.
And if you need a helping hand and a wisely prudent eye cast over your business finances, I can help with that too. You can contact me here or via my consultancy website: Autonomy Finance.