Introduction and Bio

Richard Siddle has earned a reputation for being one of the most accomplished CFOs in the Yorkshire region. We spoke to him while he was in the Interim CFO assignment at Baird Group in Leeds. His earlier career includes:

• Trained at KPMG in Leeds between 1997 and 2002
• 20 years of experience across Asda, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays
• Divisional Finance Director of RM plc
• Interim CFO assignments at THG plc & ZavviGroup (originally Virgin Mega Stores)

Richard has worked with Nicola Beach for many years and mutual contacts introduced us to each other.  With such an illustrious career and informed view of the challenges for CFOs in today’s unpredictable world, I was delighted when he agreed to meet and share his thoughts for our network.

Transitioning a financial leadership career into the interim market is an attractive option for many. Richard shares the wisdom of his experience, along with his positive experiences of building his career on foundations of blue chip, international businesses. One of the most insightful and interesting career journeys to share.

Now in your third successive Interim CFO assignment after over 20 years of building your experience in permanent roles, please share some of your recent experiences and advice for others

A business bringing someone in on an interim basis needs to have confidence that they will make a positive impact quickly. Usually on the shopping list of requirements is, “someone who has done this before”. Securing my first role, if I am honest, was luck! It was down to timing, and I knew the CFO at the business which needed someone on an interim basis.

Compromise is something that comes into consideration too. Interim roles are typically shorter, so less things have to be right when considering a role. For me compromise was a daily commute across the M62 from Leeds to THG’s offices near Manchester Airport. I have worked remotely, managed teams remotely (in the UK and overseas) and believe flexible working is about working where you are effective. In a short-term assignment, for me that meant 5 days in the office, which I have continued to do on the other assignments I have done.

Unlike previous permanent roles that I have had, there is no induction process. You build your network in the company as you go about your assignment, figuring out who to speak to in order to solve issues and just getting on with it. I have always been hands on, wanting to know where the numbers come from and understand the business, whether that is speaking to the CEO or an operations colleague in the warehouse.

One thing I remember from my first assignment was my weekly Friday morning meetings with one of the founders of THG, who was over all the numbers. He didn’t want fancy spreadsheets or presentations, he just wanted to know that I was looking at where the cash was when reviewing options for the business that they were looking to dispose of: Debit balances on the purchase ledger, Credit balances on the sales ledger, settlements on cancelled purchase orders, finding a buyer for returned stock, rebates – 14+ years of balance sheet accumulated noise that needed to be unwound in 3 months. Although you are typically free of line management responsibilities as an Interim, I have still found the time to coach the finance teams and involve them in decisions and meetings in the assignments that I have had to date and help them manage the uncertainty that they are facing. How I interacted with the teams and the colleagues on my first interim role also led to my next assignment. The management team that bought the business from THG asked if I would join them to help separate the business from THG and set the NewCo up.

In terms of challenges as an interim? You are expected to get things done quickly. Each week you submit a timesheet, and it is a point to reflect and ask yourself, “Am I adding value by being here?”, “Am I making a difference?”. I have ended most weeks even in permanent employment asking myself the same set of questions, but on an interim role it is more real because you are invoicing for your time on a weekly basis.

So far, I have been fortunate not to have had any gaps between roles. Whilst you are in a role you get to a point where you start to think about your next role, so it is important to keep your network active. Not just keeping in touch with recruiters to let them know what you are up to and when you will be available but also attending events that you are invited to build your network.

I have really enjoyed my time so far as an interim. I am not sure where I will go next yet. I could go into a permanent role or continue as an interim. I like sorting things out, making a difference, building teams and working with good management teams, and the opportunity could come through a permanent role or an interim role.

If I were to offer advice to anyone considering a role as an interim, I would say that you need to be clear on what you are going in to a company to do. There will be scope creep that you will need to manage but ensure that you deliver that for which you were hired. My style has been to work as though I am part of the business, so not to be rigid in delivering only what I was asked, but at the same time being clear that the business is expecting me to get things done within a set time period so managing expectations is key.

KPMG, Asda, Lloyds & Barclays…. That is some foundation of strong corporates in your career! How does that help the career of a CFO and how can you take that experience to an SME CFO role?

Although I have worked in large companies, the only thing that is really different is the size of the numbers. In smaller companies, I have seen a lot of similar issues that I saw in the larger companies. Finance is finance, and knowing the numbers is just as relevant in a large company as it is a small company, and being able to link the “real” world to the numbers to know what is going on is just as important.

I started out at KPMG and loved it. I really enjoyed getting out to see businesses and although I trained as an auditor, I always took the time to find out how the business worked so I could make sense of the numbers. My first move out of KPMG was to Asda, which is where the feedback and personal development for me really started.  I quickly learned that Finance’s job is to work with the business to deliver results, tell the story of the numbers and move at pace. Asda has been the blueprint for me in so many situations I have found myself in as my career progressed. There are a lot of great operators that I worked with at Asda who have gone on to work in executive roles in FTSE companies and who have coached me either directly or indirectly by watching and learning from their style, be it challenging performance or dealing with difficult situations. Operators in business get stuff done and they want someone who they can trust, who can understand what they are trying to achieve and can keep up and be their sounding board, whilst also managing the job of looking after the numbers.

I moved from Asda to Financial Services, just before the financial crisis of 2008, which was not an obvious choice after Asda. My mentor encouraged me to make the switch to use the commercial and analytical skills that Asda had trained into me in a different industry. Being a couple of months into a new company in a stressed environment, with no network for support to get things done was tough. I had zero credibility and had to figure things out, with people who were brilliant at making things complicated. My approach in such situations, is quite simple: “Can you explain to me what you’ve just said in a spreadsheet so I can understand it?”……which usually leads to a “got it” moment and, “do you mean this?”. I had to use this technique to understand bank funding for mortgages, with fixed and variable hedges, to the implications of IFRS9 on credit risk models, to effective interest rates on product fees. All which sound complicated, but Excel is a great leveller – It can be used to overcomplicate things unnecessarily but is a great tool to get to grips with what people are saying. Often, I have to get into the detail to understand and simplify things so I can explain what senior execs need to know to make decisions.

I used my Asda blueprint time and time again in Financial Services, and was regularly pushed outside my comfort zone, often with a little nudge from my mentor, whether it was restructuring teams, working on projects or improving what teams delivered, which usually involved unpicking complicated processes.

You have enjoyed the benefit of being mentored by some great leaders. How important has that been for you?

I have been fortunate to have been mentored and coached by a number of people during my career, one of who is now the CFO of one of the UK’s big 4 high street banks, and you can see why. They were really good at doing the job, with the rare quality of being great with people and building teams. They could help you figure stuff out with guidance, be it dealing with a difficult person or situation, using techniques or a simple, “just try this”. They are also very good at pulling you up too when you are off course! Some people I use are mentors and they do not even know it, I just remember what they did or how they went about it. I also learned early on in my career that you cannot just take the bits from people you get on with. You also need to switch on to people who you do not get on well with too, because in my experience I have learned just as much from these people, whether it as simple as trying to find common ground to move forward with an issue the business is facing.

It can be lonely the further up you get in an organisation too, so having a handful of people to turn to is so helpful. Sometimes it is for help and advice and sometimes it is just because you need a friendly face and a sympathetic ear to have a bit of a rant to!

How has working across different sectors benefitted your skills as a CFO?

Working across different sectors has helped me develop, but also made things harder in my career, because I have been asked, “What are you? Retail or Financial Services?”.  My answer is always, I have transferable skills and can be dropped in to a situation and will figure it out quickly. KPMG and Asda early on in my career got me used to feeling comfortable being uncomfortable and I was regularly in new situations. Working as an interim has helped build my credibility to demonstrate that I can get to grips with new areas quickly. Wherever I have been it usually always comes back to starting with people. Are they motivated? Are they clear on what they need to do? And what help/support do they need? (..oh and can you explain it in a spreadsheet?) Then it moves into systems, processes, presenting options with data and making decisions.

A lot of finance teams and business teams I have worked with also do not fully understand the difference between BAU and a projects and can be overwhelmed by all the things they need to do. I start by reminding them that there are 20-22 working days each month and BAU needs to be delivered first (financial control and reporting) and then the value adding, change the world stuff fits in after, or doesn’t and then I work with them to ensure there is a clear scope, timeline and resource to make sure the things that improve the business, or makes their work more efficient or effective get done.

Barclays gave you the opportunity to travel and to spend some time working in London tell us about that experience.

Early on in my career I had grand plans of working within 30 mins of where I lived, which then became an hour and since I moved from Asda to Financial Services has been a lot longer at times, with working away from home becoming more regular. That is where compromise comes in. What do you want? If the role is right, the company is right then the compromise might be travel, which needs managing because it is tiring! Sometimes the compromise might be family too, which has happened to me in my career, and working away whilst trying to be a husband and a dad does not always work! That is when your mentor can come in useful, when you realise that not everyone’s career goes in a straight line. Sometimes, you have to take a sideways or backwards step to move forward, but people only ever talk about the successful things they have achieved not the difficult things, which is when they probably did most of their learning.

I remember in my early days at KPMG, that to be a partner, you typically had to have worked elsewhere, usually in an external company or a different country because it gave them a broader perspective.  Although communication is shrinking the world, people are still people. Having worked in different industries and different parts of the country has helped me develop my style in how to build rapport with people quickly and get things done.

Where are the big challenges for the accounting  industry in the UK today?

What is AI going to do? It has been talked about as the next Industrial Revolution, but nobody knows how it is going to disrupt the world. I think that it is inevitable that AI is going to play an important part in accounting. Transactional Finance is already seeing the impact. Bots now read and post invoices. At some point AI will be capable of analysing businesses in real time at a depth that will give business leaders confidence in making real time business decisions.

The danger is that everyone nods politely, explaining the benefits of AI without really knowing how things work. I remember a piece of advice I got when I was training to be an accountant, in the middle of the .com bubble when I was looking at which company’s shares to buy with my monthly salary, because “you couldn’t lose”. A senior partner said something which has stuck with me ever since, “If you can’t see or understand the value in something then it isn’t there”.

At the moment, I know AI has got some way to go. I had a voice message last week, which my phone helpfully translated into a text message as, “Elton John said I need to return his library book and will see me in 10 minutes”. I am however finding myself using ChatGPT more and more to get a quick response on something I am trying to understand.

The other main challenge I see impacting the accounting industry at the moment is the ability to support businesses navigating their way through near term tough times, with increased regulation and rising costs, whilst also helping business get set-up for future success. An accountant is not just someone who produces reports and files company returns. They have to do the basics well, be able to manage the cash position of the business, challenge performance and have a strategic outlook.

Tell us about Richard outside of work

Sometimes, when I think “how do I get myself through this?” I keep reminding myself that I’ve either built up or always had an ability to endure and keep going, which probably helps explain my chosen sport. I have cycled pretty much all my life, and to me it is my therapy. It helps me switch off and work things out. When I get back from a ride, I am a better person, husband and dad.

I like to keep myself fit, but there have been times in my life when I have not been fit when work or family pressures have meant changes in routine and habits start to unwind. Finding time to keep fit is hard when you are trying to fit everything in, and to get fit I have had to adapt and develop new habits. I would like to go for an hour run on the hills or a 2–3-hour cycle, but I have learned a 10-minute run or 30 mins on my bike doing some specific interval training can also do the trick. I also started weightlifting a few years ago too after I was getting back ache from simply standing on one of the various sporting touchlines whilst watching my son play sport. I was not an immediate convert to lifting, but having stuck at it has made a huge difference to my overall health and I would recommend it to anyone doing sport.‍‍