Rutherford Cross was delighted to recently have Rob Horner, CFO at Bella & Duke speak at our latest Next Generation CFO event. Director, Hazel Wynn shares insight into Rob’s career path below.
The virtual session began with Rob covering his early career when he studied Chemistry at university before he decided to take a different path and joined EY in Transaction Services in Edinburgh. Rob reflected fondly on this experience, explaining that EY was a great place to train and gain exposure working on various acquisitions and diligence projects. A particular highlight during this time was having the opportunity to work on deals with different football clubs and understand sponsorship deals and player contracts – which was an amazing experience for Rob in particular as a football fan.
Five years later, Rob moved into Industry and also took the opportunity to move abroad and settle in Sydney. He started a 3-month contract with a small 50-person business called Steadfast, a cooperative Insurance Brokerage at that time. This contract evolved into an 8-year career with them, during which the company grew extensively. Rob worked on a lot of diligence and was involved in a full spectrum of acquisitions as well as launching an IPO. Steadfast continued to grow and Rob was also keen to continue to broaden his experience. He spoke to his CEO at the time who helped him broaden his experience in non-finance areas to prepare for C-suite level. This included taking on a Board level role for a Division and operating in a start-up environment again.
After some time, Rob decided he wanted to return to the UK and spent time in London with Steadfast – but knew he wanted to get a role closer to home in Scotland. Rob reflected on the incredible journey he had been on with the business from starting with them as a 50-person company to ending up over a £6bn revenue business at the time he left. Rob then spent a short period of time with a funeral planning business before taking on the role of CFO at Bella and Duke in 2020. He joined just after lockdown had started, and the business was around £4m revenue and has now grown to £30m revenue. Rob reflected on how high growth can bring challenges, the need to get comfortable with uncertainty and the importance of being able to solve problems you haven’t dealt with before. He also mentioned that acknowledging the fact that you do not need to know everything is key to career progression.
Some key learnings for Rob during his career path were:
- Be brave, roll your sleeves up, take the plunge
- Work with people who genuinely want to grow your career
- Try to have balance in your life
- Careers are long and winding – don’t compare your journey to others
- Stay humble and curious – always learn and always ask the ‘stupid’ question
Following Rob’s presentation, we moved onto the Q&A session. This covered areas such as his stand-out career advice, the three key areas of focus in his role as CFO and his leadership style.
If you missed the event, you can watch a recording of Rob’s full presentation and the Q&A via this YouTube link.
For more information on our events programme, please contact [email protected] or visit our events page.
