ThriveGrowth

Providing Fractional CFO services to various startups in Fintech, SaaS, E-commerce, Digital Marketing, and Sustainability.

Highlights:
•	Built 20+ financial models, resulting in $10m+ investments and an acquisition.
•	Collaborated with startups to extend runway by an average of four and a half months.
•	Advised on metrics dashboards, enhancing Founder understanding of unit economics.
•	Guided startups in successful completion of Seed rounds.
•	Led incorporation of India "tech hub" entity and UK office setup for an Australian fintech, including FCA license application.
•	Raised venture debt funding, extended Fintech startup's runway.
•	Advised on share option schemes using Seedlegals and Vestd.
•	Implemented financial tech stacks for scalable growth.
•	Assisted startups in expanding their operations to the US market, providing strategic guidance and overseeing the successful establishment of US subsidiaries.

Fractional CFO

SHAY CPA P.C.

Fractional CFO helping investment backed companies with a range of services from financial modelling, fundraising to systems and processes.

NatWest Accelerator

The NatWest Accelerator supports and empowers UK entrepreneurs to scale their businesses to the next level.

Mentor

Wilbe | Home for entrepreneurial scientists

Wilbe educates, builds and invests in scientists solving some of the world's hardest problems. Based in London, Wilbe works with scientists from leading research hubs from Cambridge, Imperial, Oxford in the UK to Max Planck in German.

Finance Lead

Highview Power

Highview Power is a technology company which has developed the CryoBattery, a proprietary solution to extending wind and solar energy throughout the day. The company is now positioned to roll out the technology on a commercial basis. Involved from the very early stages to c. £200m valuation.

•	Raised £55m (equity and debt) over 5 rounds, with thorough investor engagement and due diligence.
•	Pioneered go-to-market strategy for proprietary CryoBattery technology.
•	Secured £22m grant funding for commercial and innovation efforts.
•	Developed finance, legal, IT, HR functions to sustain growth.
•	Implemented scalable systems including Xero, Receipt Bank, CapDesk, and more.
•	Spearheaded Corporate Governance policies.
•	Led tax strategy, including transfer pricing, patent box, and R&D tax credits.
•	Setup US subsidiary included navigating regulatory requirements, coordinating legal processes, and liaising with local stakeholders for seamless entry into the US market.

Finance Director

ENGIE

Assistant Reporting Accountant

Publicis Groupe

Senior Management Accountant

I help you grow and scale your business as an outsourced CFO. Through the company I founded, ThriveGrowth, I get to do what I love: support startups and SMEs with my finance expertise. With nearly two decades of finance experience — six as the Finance Director of a technology startup — I know what it means to step into a fast-paced business and pinpoint areas for growth.

During my six years at the aforementioned startup, I:

•	Helped it grow from 10 to 50 people
•	Raised £55m over 6 rounds
•	Created a finance function and the necessary team
•	Enabled the company to expand abroad
•	Watched as the company almost went under and helped turn it around 
•	Grew its valuation to £200m 

Now, I bring everything I’ve learned to founders and entrepreneurs through ThriveGrowth. With real hands-on experience, I can help at each stage of your journey (startup, growing, scaling). If you need a CFO, advisor, consultant, or mentor to help you grow your company, get in touch.

👉🏽Schedule a call: https://calendly.com/thrive-growth
👉🏽Email me: enquiries@thrivegrowth.co.uk
👉🏽Call: 0203 920 8210

Rakesh Shah

ACE Finance Director

ACE Finance Director are strategic partners supporting our client’s journey towards sustainable growth. 

Our flexible services bring cost-efficiency, expertise and scalability to the board table, allowing our clients to navigate the complexities of financial management effectively.

ACE Finance Directors provide commercially astute Finance Directors giving your business peace of mind and greater financial stability. We are a data led business specialising in driving business growth / turnaround situations through forward thinking commercial scenario planning, providing key metrics to track and measure your business performance and enhance decision making.

As a cost-effective flexible Fractional / Outsourced Finance Director service, we are available as and when you need us; a few days a week, a few days a month or on a project-by-project basis.

📈 - Providing business insights on customers / products profitability and pricing.
🌱 - Supporting & developing team growth and knowledge.
💻 - Translating strategy goals to financial plans & objectives.
ℹ️ - Improving reporting insights by providing clearer information to support strategy decisions making.
🏥 - Managing the financial health of the business.
🔗 - Driving process improvements and efficiencies through automation and system migrations.

I have worked with a number of businesses delivering different projects as well as business as usual (BAU).

In today’s competitive business environment, outsourcing financial leadership can be a game-changer for companies aiming to thrive and expand. We provide the tools and expertise to enable you to do what you do best, which is to flourish whilst enhancing stability and maximising growth opportunities.

Director / Founder

The Delga Group

The Delga Group is a Private Equity (PE) group including Delga Press Ltd, one of the UK's largest suppliers of printed packaging, CSP Ltd, a significant supplier of printing and marketing materials to the public sector and NHS, and Scarbutts Printers Ltd, specialising in high quality commercial print predominantly in the south east.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES & ACHIEVEMENTS
• Provide leadership to the Board’s finance strategy and second in command to Managing Director
• Finance lead in MBO, including 5-year business plan, proposal structure and initial funding discussion with HSBC including affordability assessments and balance sheet projection pre & post deal
• Full autonomy of the finance function ensuring effective internal controls, compliance was in place
• Developed executive reporting in board pack, with dashboards and milestone reporting focusing and driving results ensuring clear measures of success
• Cashflow management throughout COVID pandemic including finance lead in all bank related matters including Invoice financing, raised £2m of CBIL loans and other financial borrowing to purchase machinery c£700k and government grants including SME Brexit grant application, furlough etc.
• Strategic pricing review and implementation of new pricing structure following detailed analysis
• Job costing analysis and implemented process of continuous improvement in future pricing
• Restructured the finance function resulting in automation of processes, cost neutral upskilling of team; appointment of a finance manager and two redundancies
• Manage relationships with external contacts such as auditors, bank, customers & suppliers, insurers and HMRC including all company secretary duties

Group Finance Director

The Kings Ferry Ltd

Provide leadership to the Board's Finance and Accounting strategy, to optimise the company's financial performance and strategic position. Take overall control of the company's accounting function and take ultimate responsibility for the company cash management policies. Present annual accounts to parent company National Express Ltd

Reporting to the MD of The Kings Ferry, as part of the local leadership team I provide strategic guidance and financial control to deliver revenue and profit growth. 

Key Accountabilities
•Finance business partner to maximise delivery of the businesses ambitions.
•Expand understanding and analysis of business profitability within each segment through the development of reporting systems and analysis.  
•Establish opportunities to improve operational efficiency, revenue yields or passenger volumes in order to improve margins overall.
•Further develop key performance metrics to support the local team ensuring close monitoring of revenue and profitability performance on a weekly and monthly basis.  
•Develop a forecasting process that meets the overall needs of the business and effectively highlights commercial risks and opportunities on a timely basis.
•Manage the overall costs of the operations ensuring financial control is maintained and financial processes are fully understood and implemented.
•Support the delivery of significant contractual work 
•Manage the finance team ensuring that they receive adequate support and are appropriately developed.
•Ensure strong relationships are established with the Divisional Finance team.

Head of Finance

Hays

Hays (plc) is a FTSE 250 company who are leading global experts in qualified, professional and skilled recruitment. 

Report to the Commercial Finance Director, an integral role working with Operations, Project Services, bid solutions, legal and corporate sales division to ensure the success of the HTS tender pipeline, ensuring the integrity, governance, competitiveness and financial robustness of HTS corporate tender process.

Achievements include:-
- Senior financial modeller for the Hays Talent Solutions Commercial, bids and contract team
- Built complex financially robust models which project contract revenue streams and the profitability of local and global recruitment contracts
- Submitted competitive pricing for Talent Solutions ranging in contract value from £100k to £225m
- Responsible for the financial integrity and governance process for all HTS tenders
- Built flexible financial models which have enabled sensitivities to flag commercial risks of opportunities
- work closely with operation and legal teams to provide recommendations as part of the tender process to minimise the risks of tenders
- successfully won 50% of competitive tenders awarded, previously this has been quoted at nearer 30%
- Attended a number of client meetings to discuss Hays commercial offering of the tender submitted
- Winner of an internal annual award after being nominated by Talent Solutions Bid and Sales teams

Commercial Finance Manager

UBM Built Environment

UBM Plc - is a FTSE 250 company which provides creative professional media solutions to over 20 industries. 

Reported to UBM Divisional FD, an integral role working alongside MDs to provide key support to commercial management teams, with significant input into business strategy and commercial decision making. 

My achievements include:-
- re-built finance relationships and overall confidence in finance through accountability and an open book approach
- implemented new cost controls resulted in highlighting £4.0m of over accrued costs on the balance sheet across 5 brands and central overheads
- significant role in the boards Strategic Scorecard project with the objective of reporting on how the business is performing against the 3 year strategic plan, this was a finance lead project and won the Innovation award 2011/2012 for Built Environment. 
- successfully lead the rolling forecast project to implement a monthly 3 year forecast tool and process across Built Environment
- Business Partnered with MDs to establish and implement 3 year strategic plans to drive profitability by identifying new revenue streams, drive cost reductions and develop new products to reduce the impact of core revenue decline. 
- set a plan to change the product mix from print to more profitable digital and face to face revenue streams
- financial improvement of a loss making brand with declining revenue streams to a break even position, established a 3 year strategic plan which contributed to the sale of the brand to a competitor
- financial improvement of break even brand with declining revenue streams to a brand generating double digit profit margins from cost reductions and growth in more profitable events
- operationally reduced the cost base of three brands by 10% to achieve budgeted place holders set by UBM Group, this included changes to the circulation of the weekly magazines, closure of a loss making product, product re-design and restructuring the team

Media Senior Financial Analyst

Telereal

Financial Accountant for the Services division, including financial reporting, analysis and accounting

Services Management Accountant

I am a commercially astute 𝘾𝙄𝙈𝘼-𝙦𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙞𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧 and the founder of ACE Finance Director.

🟣 𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗖𝗘 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿?

An outsourced or fractional finance director services company focused on the development of small to medium-sized businesses.

I have more than 20 years of experience in financial accounting, holding a number of critical roles before founding ACE Finance Director in September 2021. My skills cover numerous fields, including:-

1️⃣ Financial management
2️⃣ Financial governance
3️⃣ Business growth plans
4️⃣ Cash flow analysis


🟣 𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗜𝘀 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁?

We work with small to medium-sized enterprises seeking enhanced financial management, often ahead of the introduction of long-term growth plans. My experience in financial accounting is transferable across a range of different business activities and opportunities.


🟣𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝗖𝗘 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲?

The business incorporates a range of services with our packages moulded around the requirements of individual clients. I’ve helped companies by…

💻 Translating strategic goals into comprehensive financial plans

📒 Enhancing reporting insights to provide clearer information for strategic decision-making

🏥 Managing the financial health of the business.

📈 Offering valuable insights on client and service profitability and pricing

🔗Driving process improvements and efficiencies through automation and system migrations.

🌱 - Supporting & developing team growth and knowledge.

This is just a selection of the many skills I have developed over the years and the services provided by my company.


🟣 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗗𝗼 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸?

“Daryl goes to extra lengths to support the business. He has a positive, good-humoured approach and adapts readily to the changing priorities involved in this kind of role. I would highly recommend him for a broad range of finance-related roles.”

“Daryl’s strong accounting knowledge, plus his partnering and consultative skills, means that we would work with him again, and he would be first on our list if we needed a contractor.”


🟣 𝗔𝗿𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗔 𝗡𝗼 𝗢𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗧𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆

📅 Book a call: www.acefinancedirector.co.uk/contact
📧 Email: info@acefinancedirector.co.uk
🌐 Website: www.acefinancedirector.co.uk

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Rakesh Shah

Daryl Gilley

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