In my previous role, I was brought in to deputise for a finance director to finalise the annual budget and lead on the annual audit as well as prepare the statutory accounts. My role included serving as lead between the staff and the auditors, as well as liaising with departmental heads and directors. A primary focus is always on building relationships and getting to know the issues, formulating timetables and ensuring we deliver on business-critical deadlines.

Do you feel that your communication skills are just important as your technical expertise in your role?

I think it comes in two strands really. First, having they technical know-how is key to problem-solving. Second, is communication. As an interim, I do not have time to be trained, sometimes I don’t even have a handover. So, I need to be able to harvest the necessary information, interpret it, and then devise the strategy.

That's where effective communications skills come into play. Most of the time I'll be working with non-finance team members, which requires finding ways to communicate information without using complicated financial jargon.   

Invariably most organisations have identical set ups, it’s just a case of navigating different personalities and individual styles of work. This doesn’t always happen seamlessly. A lot of my approach involves determining staff skills and limitations and providing support to give them the confidence to grow in their roles as well as deliver.   

Transparency is key, especially when liaising with teams remotely – making yourself as accessible as possible is crucial. In one of my roles, I managed a team of about one hundred people over two offices, which definitely honed my communication skills.  

You just need to be hungry to learn, organised, and focused on putting your professional ambitions first.

What advice would you give individuals who are starting out in finance now?   

For any aspiring finance professional, I think it's important to recognise the commitment that you are undertaking. Holding down a full-time job and studying simultaneously, requires a degree of discipline and focus, but also sacrifice. This isn’t always easy, but you just need to be hungry to learn, organised, and focused on putting your professional ambitions first. It’s also really valuable to build a team of likeminded people around you, that way one can motivate and support each other.  

Supplementary skills are helpful too. Indeed, after becoming a Financial Controller, to aspire to the next level I needed to fill an experience gap, so I took on a permanent role while studying for an MBA. I realised that I was lacking in ‘soft skills’ such as project and operational management, business strategy and marketing. In order to get to where I aspired to be, I realised that I would have to top up on these areas as well. Becoming an interim was all about proving to myself that I had acquired these skills.  

If you are looking to become an interim, ensuring that you're technically sound and understand how processes should operate will enable you to identify issues. Make sure you spend time in permanent roles to develop your skills – since as an interim you are often expected to walk in and provide solutions immediately. As such, you need to be able to win people’s confidence and demonstrate your value.   

How has the industry changed since you first started out? And are these changes for the better?   

The social housing sector is constantly changing because government policies are. The grant funding regime has substantially reduced.

After the Grenfell Tower tragedy, we saw health and safety really coming into focus and now the race to net zero is bringing environmental concerns to the fore. Social landlords must prove that they are compliant, can deliver value for money and meet certain commitments in order to qualify for funding.  

The rising cost-of-living is hurting many of our residents, most of whom are low-income earners. From increased prices of materials and rising labour costs, which will determine property build costs, to interest rates which will impact Social Landlords looking to borrow to develop new houses.  

There are some challenging and interesting times ahead for the sector. For social housing projects it will be about recalibrating in order to maintain the balancing act and to fulfil regulatory and social objectives while continuing to grow.