Cherry Professional

Please give us a potted history of your career to date and also your current position?

I have been the Finance Director here for 11 years having started on Christmas Eve in 1998 - prior to that I had been 13 years at KPMG locally based in the Nottingham and Derby offices, mainly on the audit side, but in the days when we didn't specialise as much as they do now - so quite a mixed background in terms of insolvency, transaction work and investigations.
I became involved with Nottingham Forest through KPMG when Nottingham Forest ran out of money in 1996. This involved some weekend work and as the only non-married manager at KPMG at the time I was asked to work through instead of the guy who was due to have it because of a family commitment. I often wonder that if he'd been single and hadn't had that family commitment what would have happened since, but there you go.

Yes, because you met your wife here I think didn't you?

Yeah that's right - I've got married since I have been here as well. From doing that piece of work I became the Audit Manager for KPMG on the Forest account and so I did the flotation, did the audit and then when Forest were looking for a Finance Director back in 1997/1998 they approached me. I did it on secondment for a while from KPMG and then took the job in December 1998 so I've been here for 11 years.
I've seen a lot of change in that time having gone from being a Plc to being privately owned. During that time we had the situation where one Board ended up suing each other - which earned the lawyers a lot of money but was a fascinating process going through the courts of the land. We have almost gone bust so I regard it as having had an Administration here without actually calling in the Administrators which was quite challenging - ringing some creditors trying to get extended terms and that type of thing.
There's been some stressful times here and all the time you are in a business where everybody knows how you are doing as there is a league table in every newspaper, every weekend and everyone has got a view and an opinion on how you are running the business and how the business is doing. It's quite interesting from that point of view; it's rare for me to come across somebody without any interest in Nottingham Forest.

So quite different then from KPMG?

Yes, KPMG was an excellent grounding for me, I moved there from University and it was everything I wanted, I stayed there for 13 years, but it was time for a change and I think that if I had stayed there I may have had to move around the country. Opportunities like this don't come along too often; I think in those days, it was probably only the Premier League clubs that had Finance Directors. It stays interesting because of the product you are dealing with and the interest that it gets both nationally and from the media.

2009 has been a tough year for most businesses - what have been the major issues that have affected Nottingham Forest and how have you dealt with these?

I think the major business issue for us has been reacting to the lack of cash and trying to be constructive and innovative in pricing so that we make sure that people can come along to various events. We need to price it so that we get the balance between the business needs and the needs of the supporters. We have had some very good results most recently against Coventry, which isn't traditionally a very big fixture for Forest, where we had a crowd of 28,000, so we think we priced that about right and got a good variance against the budget of a 23,000 crowd.
Probably one of the biggest issues within the business itself has been on the commercial side. Money has been hard to come by as businesses' marketing budgets are the obvious place for a lot of cutback. The banks, solicitors and the accountants cut back quite a bit on their expenditure with companies like us. So with hospitality again we have had to be innovative. We have tried to enhance some of the lounges we have got down here and it's trying to pitch different lounges in different positions, both price wise and in offering so that people have got a choice and businesses have got a choice of what to get out of a day of coming to watch football other than just watching the football. It's more of an experience for them in terms of who they meet, what they see and where they watch the match.

I think when I came to see Gary (Sales Executive) last year you were doing the refurbishment of some of the lounges?

Yes that's right, in the boardroom and down here and in the suite next door - the Legends lounge is now called the 1865 Suite - we spent a lot of money on that, it needed a good lick of paint but we have set it as our highest quality area within the ground. This will be reflected in the price in years to come. Again what we have found in this business is that once we have started with a project it's important to get people interested before finally setting the prices - but then it's the same as any business where you have to match demand with supply.

What's the outlook looking like for 2010 and what are some of the challenges that you think the business will face this year?

3rd place in the championship playing 2nd place tomorrow night on the telly - in this business we look very much in the short term because we have got an event every week. In terms of the staff here they look upon events every 2 weeks with every home match being an event. In terms of the team, and the directors there's an event every week so we think very much in terms of the football season and the vagaries that that brings us. Calendar years don't make an awful lot of difference to us because we are very much working on a season to season basis.
So, my challenge for the first half of the year is trying to make this team as successful as possible. The challenges in the second half of the season could be based on what happens in the first half of the season, if we get promoted then the challenges will be very different to the challenges that we will face if we stay in this division.
A little bit different from perhaps other businesses, I guess the challenges facing us are that money is still short, there is unemployment around. We've got to look at innovative prices and products so that people can get down here if they want to come down here and we want to put on a good product, we don't want price to be a barrier for too many people. Then again we are a loss making business so in general we have got to make sure that we can cash in when we can.

Thinking more generally, the economy has not been in the best state in the last 12 months or so, do you see a different outlook for 2010?

What we know at the start of 2010 which is different to where we were last year is that there is going to be a General Election this year and I think in terms of business confidence, thinking back to how businesses look at their marketing budgets, I think business confidence isn't going to be greatly restored until after that election when there will be more certainty. Who knows what that certainty will be. I read the newspapers and watch the news and get no idea from the politicians what they have actually got planned at this stage so all you will be able to say is after June there will be more certainty. I think certainty in a macro economic background is important. Whether that turns out to be a better certainty I don't know.

How do you think the East Midlands is faring as a region compared to other places?

I think bearing pretty well, it's got a mixed economy, in the last but one big recession we still had a big reliance on certain sectors but I don't think that's the case anymore. I don't think we've fared too badly.

What do you think we could do better in the East Midlands?

We could get a World Cup to Nottingham! That would be a distinct improvement on where we are. We've made strides at the back end of 2009 to make Nottingham a candidate city for the England World Cup bid and a lot of work will go into that during 2010.
From our point of view we have been working in tandem with the City Council who have been excellent in promoting the bid with the FA and now it is up to the City Council and ourselves to work with the FA to make sure that England's bid is as good as possible and that England is in a strong as possible position to get appointed as 2018 World Cup hosts. That decision is made at the back end of 2010 so that's something on the horizon for us and I generally think it's a big opportunity for Nottingham investment and the profile it would give the city. I think that they have been very right to push it as hard as they have. There are bound to be some challenges that Nottingham will face as a city making that happen.

What would that involve and what would we need to do?

As a country I think we have got to show a unified front to FIFA who are the ultimate judges on which country gets the World Cup and show how inclusive England will be and how welcoming England will be to the number of media and spectators that would be interested by a World Cup. FIFA have taken the World Cup to South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014 and frankly they need a good commercial World Cup like they had with Germany four years ago and I think England is as good a place as any for them to have a good commercial World Cup come 2018 because of the established infrastructure that England and all the top quality stadiums we have got and have planned.

An extra question that I'm going to throw in - what are your thoughts on what is happening over the river at the moment at Notts County?

As a Club, we don't really have anything to say about that - I don't know any more or any less than is in the newspapers - they have obviously got challenges at the moment as regards the need for investment and they have my upmost sympathy and empathy because we were there in 2001/2002. We were lucky we had an investor lined up in Nigel Doughty and that has undoubtedly helped us and shaped the club. They are looking for a high level of investment but it hasn't materialised yet. The guys over there are giving it their best shot .Good luck to them if they can get the investment in that they are looking for.

My colleague Martin is a diehard County fan so wouldn't be happy if I hadn't asked the question.

We forgive him!

What do you do outside of work and what makes you tick as a person?

Well work is all encompassing during the football season. We work a 6 day week so that takes up a hell of a lot of time and at certain times there are long hours involved. My main relaxation away from work is golf. I like to be competitive and it's also a great release for me outside into the fresh air and have a wander around. At the moment I understand there is 2ft of snow in Kirkby in Ashfield where I play so there's not much chance of a game. Outside of the football season I hope to play on Sunday and once during the week.

Do you give the players any tips; I guess some like to play golf in their spare time?

Yes there's a few that play and we had Lee Westwood as our guest a few weeks ago and I think he was giving out a few tips and throwing down a few challenges. A couple of the guys play but in the last few years there has been a bit of a move away from golf because it develops the wrong muscles for the players. They can be precious souls and coaches for a time actively discouraged them from playing golf. As a Club we certainly like to play and we hold various golf events during the year. We normally have two or three events so it's great to see the players out, it gives them an opportunity to get outside of their comfort zone and rub shoulders with our corporate guests and get some enjoyment.

If you had not become an accountant what would you of done do you think? Did you have ambitions as child?

I don't know to be honest. I did an accountancy based degree at University; my golf was at a standard where I half thought about turning professional. I qualified as an accountant but actually describe what I do now as not being much to do with accountancy. In the role that I do here as Finance Director I have a very general hat on in terms of the areas that I take responsibility for. I have ultimate responsibility for the pitch for example, I wouldn't say it was something that I was educated to but the groundsman has a direct report to me, so I have become very much a generalist in that regard.

Do you relish those new challenges to move away from the normal duties of a Finance Director?

Yeah, yeah it just keeps you alert - my training with KPMG was as a generalist for instance. I think I benefitted from that in terms of approach and seeing things as an opportunity and try to get my head around things. It helps you stay on your toes.

Anything else you would like to tell us about or comment on?

I could talk about the Club forever, there is a massive interest and that gives me a lot of pleasure - we could talk about that for ages.