I’m a New Zealander, married to a Scot and for 35 years I have been living in Glasgow – this lovely old, friendly, indomitable, moist Scottish City.

I qualified as a Chartered Accountant after training and working with PwC (formerly Coopers and Lybrand) in New Zealand and London. I specialised in Corporate Recovery work and was involved in receiverships and intensive care work on behalf of banks and institutional lenders.

In my early 40’s I took, what seemed at the time, a big career shift and moved into economic and social regeneration work and was Finance Director for Govan Initiative Ltd in Glasgow for several years. Over 20 years ago I set up my own consulting and accounting practice in the West End of Glasgow. It is from these roots that our firm’s third sector specialism developed, but we also provide accounting services and advice to private sector clients.

I love my work largely because of the people I meet within the third sector – ‘salt of the earth’ folk who are trying to build flourishing communities and make our world fairer and more just. One of the things I especially enjoy is meeting a new client whose financial systems are in a shambles and who need help! I still find great fulfilment in ‘bringing order from chaos’ – implementing and bedding in new accounting systems and training the client and making the finance systems ‘sing’.

As well as being a Chartered Accountant, I am a Fellow of the Association of Charity Independent Examiners and I have a BA in Modern History.

I am married to Janet who is a retired GP. We met when she went to NZ for a working holiday after graduating from Glasgow University. We have three adult children, David (who owns and leads the practice), Kirsty who is a primary school teacher and Jonny who is pursuing a career in counselling psychology.

I enjoy cycling most days (visiting clients or simply to get around), reading, relaxing with friends and hillwalking in Scotland and NZ. I am very happy to call Scotland my adopted ‘second home’, but I love getting back to New Zealand my ‘first home’ and my roots. I attend Cairns Church of Scotland and enjoy reflecting on the extent to which the religious and spiritual sphere plays a part in our lives and in society. I just love feijoas, a NZ fruit with a distinctive sweet, juicy, aromatic flavour.

Voluntary Interests:

I serve on a couple of charity boards – the Preshal Trust, a drop in centre in Govan where I am chair and Bay of Hope, a charity set up to provide humanitarian support for vulnerable children and their families in rural Uganda. I am also on the Finance & Audit Committee for the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice.