Podcasts about financial director

Nosipho Radebe speaks to Riaan Erasmus, Deputy CEO and Financial Director at OctodecSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!The American Heritage Museum and What It Offers, with President & Financial Director of the American Heritage Museum Rob Collings.John Wilson – MA father accused in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal & author of "Varsity Blues - The Untold Story of The Scandal Within the Scandal." joined Dan.Gen Z grads say their college degrees were a waste of time and money as AI infiltrates the workplace. Jon Schultz - Technology & AI Expert - founder and CEO of ezLocator explained.Karen Read's Retrial Begins! Phil Tracy – Criminal Defense Attorney checked in!Listen to WBZ NewsRadio on the NEW iHeart Radio app and be sure to set WBZ NewsRadio as your #1 preset!

Episode Summary: This week, The Aerospace Advantage takes a break for Easter, but that doesn't mean our listeners need to take a pause. In this week's episode we reach back to a previously recorded conversation where the Mitchell team reflects on the air war over Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and speaks with combat pilot and POW Lt Col Gene Smith, USAF (Ret). Not only did Lt Col Smith fly and fight in some of the most heavily defended airspace in the history of aerial warfare, but he also spent over five years as a POW—facing conditions that pushed him to the brink. Despite these challenges, Lt Col Smith and his fellow POWs prevailed. The Air Force lost 1,737 aircraft over Vietnam. That's roughly 80% of the Air Force's current fighter inventory. Those losses are hard to imagine today given the relatively permissive conditions that our airmen have operated in since the end of the Cold War. Tomorrow's conflicts, however, promise to be far more costly, which is why it's important to reflect on our history and learn from the past in order to properly leverage the effects of American airpower. Credits: Host: John "Slick" Baum, Non-resident Fellow, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Producer: Shane Thin  Executive Producer: Douglas Birkey Guest: Maj Gen Larry "Stutz" Stutzriem, USAF (Ret.), Executive Vice President, The Air & Space Forces Association Guest: Heather "Lucky" Penney, Director of Research, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Guest: Lt Col Richard “Gene” Smith, USAF (Ret.) Guest: Rob Collings, President & Financial Director, The American Heritage Museum Links: Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://bit.ly/3GbA5Of Website: https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MitchellStudies Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mitchell.Institute.Aerospace LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nzBisb Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mitchellstudies/ #MitchellStudies #AerospaceAdvantage #Vietnam #POW #History

In this What's Next with Aki Anastasiou interview, Jordaan Burger discusses the modern challenges facing CFOs. Burger is the Sage Vice President of Finance for the Africa, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific region, and has worked in the finance industry for over 20 years. He joined Sage in 2019 as the Financial Director for the Africa and Middle East region, and was promoted to his current position in 2021. In this What's Next interview, Burger discusses how the CFO role is evolving in South Africa. He unpacks the new challenges and responsibilities that have emerged, and explains how these changes have led to CFOs having a greater impact on the C-Suite. Burger also outlines how CFOs can balance their organisations' current finances with the need for growth. He then notes the importance of automation for generating growth opportunities, and explains how Sage can assist with this. Burger concludes the interview by sharing his vision for the future of finance, and the role Sage will play in this.

Nosipho Radebe speaks to Boipelo Lekubo, Financial Director at Harmony GoldSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, host Kevin Brent is joined by Charlotte Melia, the inspiring founder of D&F Creative, to explore how she scaled her international events business across London, New York, and Riyadh. Charlotte shares her entrepreneurial journey, including her evolution from organising children's parties to delivering high-profile corporate events globally. She opens up about the challenges of scaling internationally, from managing cash flow to hiring senior leadership and balancing the demands of running a business as a single mother. This episode is a must-listen for business leaders, female founders, and anyone navigating international growth. Charlotte also shares valuable advice on building networks, refining pitches, and embracing bold decisions when scaling up. D&F Creative's Business Evolution: Originated as a children's party business before pivoting to corporate events Expanded into corporate events, focusing on sports fan zones, internal communications, and brand activations. Achieved international growth with offices in London, New York, and Riyadh, delivering results faster than expected, including three events in Riyadh within ten weeks. Challenges of Scaling Internationally: Transitioning from upfront private event payments to 30-60 day corporate payment terms caused cash flow strain. Seasonal revenue fluctuations led to opening a Middle East office to bridge gaps in Q1 business. Hiring senior roles, such as a Financial Director and operations leads, to address leadership gaps. Balancing international travel demands while parenting a son with severe autism. Advice for Female Founders: Build strong networks and learn from connections. Practice your elevator pitch through competitions to refine your message. Be bold in pursuing international opportunities and pivoting when needed. Surprisingly, the Saudi market has proven to be very supportive of women-owned businesses. Sustainability Initiatives: Prioritising local supply chains in all regions. Vetting vendors based on sustainability credentials. Implementing a no single-use plastics policy worldwide. Investing profits into a biodegradable balloon research project with Imperial College London. Make sure you don't miss any future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you like to listen to your podcasts. For now, continue listening for the full story from Charlotte.   Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for. If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/kevin You can get in touch with Kevin & Granger here: kevin@biz-smart.co.uk grangerf@biz-smart.co.uk   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available! Drawing on BizSmart's own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brent explores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up. More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/   Charlotte can be found here: linkedin.com/in/charlotte-melia-4553a296 https://dazzleandfizz.co.uk/ info@dazzleandfizz.co.uk

Spanish football giants, Real Madrid Foundation, in partnership with Generation Schools, is launching their world-renowned football academy in Imhoff, Cape Town. Enrolments for the 2025 academic year will open soon. The partnership marks a significant milestone in South African sports education, as the academy will be offering young athletes the opportunity to experience elite-level training guided by one of the most celebrated football institutions in the world. Bongiwe Zwane Jac Vos, Financial Director of Generation Schools

Open enrollment is your opportunity to create a benefits package that truly fits your needs - but it's easy to overlook key details. On this webinar, C&A Financial CEO, Frank Congilose and C&A Financial Director, John Suckey discuss common mistakes to avoid, offer guidance on making the right selections to ensure you're fully prepared to maximize your benefits. Some of the topics discussed include:PreparationHealth, Dental, and Vision InsuranceFlexible Spending Accounts (FSA) or Health Savings Accounts (HSA)Life and Disability InsuranceRetirement PlansPost Enrollment Tips2024-7402506.1 Exp 12/26To learn more about C&A Financial Group, schedule a meeting or to consider a career with us, visit www.ca-strategy.com for more information. Follow us online on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube

Nosipho Radebe speaks to Anabel Vieira, Financial Director at OctodecSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this What's Next with Aki Anastasiou interview, Kevin Aron discusses the exciting changes coming to Medshield's benefits and contributions for 2025. Aron is the Principal Officer for Medshield Medical Scheme and boasts over 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry where he held multiple key positions across several major financial and healthcare businesses. These include Acting Chief Operating Officer at MSO, Private Equity Specialist at Investec, Financial Director at Solution Health Risk Management, Strategic Adviser at Mediclinic, and many more. In this What's Next interview, Aron outlines what Medshield is, how long it has been around, and its current position in the market. He details the changes Medshield has made to its benefits and contributions for 2025, highlighting how these minimise members' out-of-pocket expenses. Aron then discusses the factors driving the rapid increase in healthcare costs and explains how Medshield is trying to negate this. He also explains the role new technologies are playing in improving Medshield's services, as well as how these technologies enable better preventative care. Aron concludes the interview by discussing how the company will continue to grow in the year ahead.

Anna Chekhovich serves as the Financial Director at Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, where she plays a key role in exposing corruption within Putin's regime and promoting transparency and justice in Russia. She also works as the Nonprofit Bitcoin Adoption Lead at The Human Rights Foundation. In this episode, we discuss the challenges of fighting corruption inside Russia, the personal risks faced by opposition activists, and the state of civil liberties under Putin's rule. We explore Navalny's impact, the internal dynamics of Russian politics, and the ongoing struggle for freedom, as Anna offers a first-hand account of life inside a system designed to suppress dissent and maintain control.

Have you ever dreamt of flying? This dream is quite common. Humans have always been fascinated by the skies, and our quest to conquer them dates back to the Spain of Al-Ándalus. Amazing, isn't it? In the 9th century, the Andalusian scientist Abbás Ibn Firnás decided he wanted to fly. After a few crashes, he created a prototype that was able to glide for a few seconds. Interestingly, this device also became the world's first parachute when he attempted to land. Fast forward to the past century, the Wright Brothers made history by creating the first airplane. With this achievement, the aviation industry took off, leading to the creation of the first airports. Today, airports have become global hubs, connecting the world through the skies. This transformation has been driven by continuous innovation and adaptation to meet new user needs and security requirements. Our colleagues from Ferrovial's Airports subsidiary, Víctor Vicente, Asset Manager; Laura López Sotomayor, Financial Director; and Ismael Ordoñez, Head of Asset Management, share insights on how airports have evolved into the infrastructures we know today. Furthermore, what can we expect from the future of aviation? Tune in to this episode and join us in a guessing game about how the horizon might look the next time we take a plane. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with inspiring stories of entrepreneurship, resilience, and the power of community. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we sat down with Alejandra Cardenas, Financial Director at Supermercados Talpa, and Albert Sorto, Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Alliances at Rudhil Companies, to hear about the role their heritage has played […]

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with inspiring stories of entrepreneurship, resilience, and the power of community. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we sat down with Alejandra Cardenas, Financial Director at Supermercados Talpa, and Albert Sorto, Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Alliances at Rudhil Companies, to hear about the role their heritage has played […] The post The Voice of Business/Episode 2: Hispanic Heritage Heroes appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

Stephen Grootes engages in a insightful conversation with Deon Raju, Financial Director at Absa Group, and Hlelo Giyose, Chief Investment Officer at First Avenue Investment Management, to unpack Absa's unexpected decision to oust its CEO. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Deon Raju, Financial Director at Absa Group takes Stephen Grootes through the first-year results. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today's episode, Christina interviews Stewart Roberts, owner of Maia Kai, on the importance of understanding finances in business. Stewart shares his extensive experience in the back office accounts and funding side of recruitment for over 24 years. He highlights the value of non-exec finance advisory services for recruitment agencies and emphasizes the need for directors to have a solid grasp of their financials.  KEY TAKEAWAYS It's crucial for businesses to prioritize understanding their finances from the very beginning. Hiring a non-executive financial director can provide valuable insights and guidance, even for smaller businesses. Monthly management accounts can help businesses stay on top of their numbers and make informed decisions. Outsourcing tasks like bookkeeping, accounting, and IT can be cost-effective and efficient for businesses of all sizes. Accountants should not only provide financial services but also actively help businesses succeed and grow. BEST MOMENTS "I think people think if they get these softwares it's going to actually eliminate the need of their accountant." "I always say to get monthly management accounts. I know a lot of people would say quarterly. I think monthly, really, you've got to know what your numbers are on a month by month basis." "I think that accountability piece is really important, especially in those smaller organisations, when there's no one to have those hard conversations with." "People don't understand things like VAT, corporation tax and things like that, so what they will quite often do is they'll look at their bank account and use that as a judgment on how successful their business is." "I've had some bad luck with accountants, right? And a big part of that was over-reliance on automation by the accountant without something strong enough on my part, as well as theirs, to make sure that where we were relying on automation, that things were getting picked up, checked." VALUABLE RESOURCES Christina Talks Podcast https://www.green-umbrella.biz/how-to-launch-anything-using-social-media/ https://twitter.com/christinamc80?lang=en-gb https://www.green-umbrella.biz/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinarobinson2/?originalSubdomain=uk HOST BIO Christina has been working with SME's since 2013 to launch, develop and perfect their online presence. In 2019 Christina made the move from employee to business owner of a successful digital marketing agency focused on educating business owners in the use of social media. Christina is driven by the fact that in today's world, it doesn't matter how big or small your marketing budget is, you can be a major player. For small businesses, the tools are just as accessible – you just need to know how to use them!

Gary Brown is a numbers guy. From accountant to Financial Director most of his business life has been around making the numbers work.Now he has a passion to help entrepreneurs to ensure their business is ready for net zero.As a member of Collaboration Global he has long seen the need to make your business be a catalyst for more than simply making money as an income.Now after much study and research he understands how small business owners can have a profound effect on reducing the carbon footprint to help reach the elusive net zero by 2030.Want to know how your business can be part of it, start here and listen to what Gary has to say.#collaboration #love #team #community #inspiration #personaldevelopment #business #coglo #connection #networkingmeeting #onlinenetworking #onlinecommunity #onlinebusinessnetworking #networkingevents #businessforgood #adversity #kindness #inspiration #personaldevelopment #love #growth

To quote Ray Dalio, “Principles connect your values to your actions.” With that in mind, welcome to this insightful Investing Matters interview with Richard Stone, hugely talented former Chartered Accountant, Equity Analyst, Financial Controller, Finance Director, CEO, leader and now Chief Executive of the Association of Investment Companies, which he joined in September 2021. Prior to that, Richard was Chief Executive of Share plc (The Share Centre platform) from 2014 to 2020 and was Finance Director from 2006 to 2013. At Share plc he positioned the company to deliver exceptional customer service, including digital transformation, for both direct retail clients and other partner investment firms. Floating the business on London' Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in May 2008. Richard led Share Plc for seven years as Group CEO prior to the business being purchased by Interactive Investor in 2020. Many of you will be aware that as a subsidiary of Interactive Investor, that Share plc was purchased in May 2022 by the behemoth investment company Abrdn Plc. Having had an interest in stocks and shares since his teens. Richard's passion for numbers led to him pursuing and attaining a Philosophy, Politics and Economics Degree at York University. Following this he gained his “first proper job” with Ernst & Young (EY) as a Trainee Accountant. Richard excelled at EY and went on to win the coveted KPMG Peat Prize (The Peat Gold Medal & Prize) for the highest mark in his final Chartered Accountancy exams. Richard is qualified ICAEW Chartered Accountant. After some year auditing for EY, Richard got the opportunity in 1999 to move to London to work as a software and information technology equity analyst for the US-based Investment Bank, Robertson Stephens. Where he worked on numerous IPOs in London. He then moved to ECsoft Group Plc the Information Technology Consulting Service co, a dual listed Nasdaq firm as their Financial Controller. Following which he moved to Huntsworth Plc, becoming their first Financial Director, where as part of the team backed by 3i, worked diligently and rapidly over three years grew the company from 100 members of staff to 600. He then joined Gavin Oldham at the Share Centre (Share Plc). Richard has seen and worked across the US & UK Capital Markets from almost every angle during the past two decades, which makes for fantastic and insightful Investing Matters which will be informative for all. In this Investing Matters interview, Richard gives a brief overview of his roles and responsibilities at the Association of Investment Companies, AIC's fantastic team, Investment companies' growth, capital raising, dividends, reasons to be optimistic and much more. Topics and discussions also include: -Equity participation -Investment companies / Investment Trusts “Never get into stockbroking” -Studying economics / Big privatisations -Investment companies discounts to Net Asset Value, tightening cycle -Private Equity -Renewables / Infrastructure - Reasons to optimistic -The UK market “is pregnant with value” -Mergers, wind-ups, buybacks -The British ISA -Shareholder engagement -Investment companies cost disclosures -Stamp Duty -AIC's education & building awareness strategy -Structural benefits of investing in investment trusts -Dividend Heroes -A long-term savings plan -Long-term investment outperformance -Investing & much more We hope you enjoy this podcast, and we look forward to hearing your feedback. Please subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice and follow the @InvMattPodcast on Twitter.

NOLUTHANDO MTHONTI-MLAMBO speaks to Boipelo Lekubo, Financial Director, Harmony about how this will boost the industry. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gavin Butchart is the Financial Director of Brenthurst Wealth and Head of Operations in Mauritius

From economic recessions, wars and a global pandemic, to developing technology, sustainability and diversity opportunities, there are multiple challenges and changes in the wider world that businesses need to navigate. We speak to Lee Spong, Financial Director of Mala Engineering, about her experiences – not just about how Mala is evolving for the future and the strategies it adopts to protect itself financially in challenging times, but also how it feels being a woman in a traditionally male-dominated sector.

Jason Quinn is no longer an executive employee at Absa. He leaves the position of Financial Director at the lender after 7 years in the position to step into Nedbank's offices as CEO at the end of May next year. He will replace current Nedbank CEO MIke Brown. Business Day TV spoke to Banking Analyst and Portfolio Manager at Denker Capital, Kokkie Kooyman for his assessment of the move.

NOLUTHANDO MTHONTI-MLAMBO speaks to Anabel Vieira, Financial Director, Octodec about their latest results. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amnon Melzer is a Bitcoiner based in South Africa. He is a qualified actuary, serves as Financial Director for several small companies, and is a serial entrepreneur. But it is Bitcoin that inspires him. He first learned about cryptography in University in the 1990s and now he teaches his children about Bitcoin through the family's "hyperinflation wall." -- Partners:   BITCOIN 2024 is the biggest Bitcoin conference in the world! Come join us on July 25-27 in Nashville! Get your early bird pass at a steep discount at https://b.tc/conference. Use code HODL for 10%. -- Fold is the best Bitcoin rewards debit card and shopping app in the world. Earn Bitcoin on everything you purchase with Fold's Bitcoin cash back debit card, and spin the Daily Wheel to earn free Bitcoin. Head to https://www.foldapp.com/natalie and you can get up to 10,000 satoshis when you sign up. -- I'm proud to partner with Coinkite your go-to tech company for top-notch Bitcoin custody solutions. The ColdCard wallet offers a safe haven for your Bitcoin, securely storing your digital assets offline. Check out Coinkite's offerings, and take the step toward accessible Bitcoin management. Get 5% off using my link https://store.coinkite.com/promo/COINSTORIES -- CrowdHealth offers the Bitcoin alternative to health insurance. When you have a health need, CrowdHealth negotiates down the cost of your medical bill and then crowdfunds the balance from the community. The rest of the money you would have spent on insurance and healthcare costs? Yours to keep! https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/natalie to sign up. -- The Orange Pill App is building the social layer for Bitcoin and creating opportunities for in-person connections and building community. Connect with HODLers and Bitcoin events based on your location. Download The Orange Pill App and more at http://signup.theorangepillapp.com/opa/natbrunell. -- If you're looking for the highest-quality sustainable pork, steak and seafood products, look no further than Campo Grande. Their animals are raised on family-owned farms and are antibiotic-free, hormone-free, slow-growth, and carbon negative. For $20 off Campo Grande boxes use code HODL: https://eatcampogrande.com/HODL -- HODL Bitcoin for your retirement through an iTrust Capital IRA: itrust.capital/nataliebrunell -- OTHER RESOURCES Natalie's website https://talkingbitcoin.com/ Lyn Alden Investment Strategy https://www.lynalden.com/ -- VALUE FOR VALUE — SUPPORT NATALIE'S SHOWS Strike ID https://strike.me/coinstoriesnat/ Cash App $CoinStories -- FOLLOW NATALIE ON SOCIAL MEDIA Twitter https://twitter.com/natbrunell Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nataliebrunell Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliebrunell -- Producer: Aron Bender https://www.linkedin.com/in/aron-bender/ -- DISCLAIMER This show is for entertainment purposes only and does not give financial advice. #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #money

Welcome to another episode of It's a Numbers Game Podcast by The MSP Finance Team with Daniel Welling and Adam Morris.    We created It's a Numbers Game Podcast to help MSP owners learn and understand how to build and maintain a financially healthy MSP business. In this podcast series, MSP business owners like you will learn the fundamental steps, the tips and tricks, the dos and don'ts to achieve MSP financial growth.      Adam and Daniel are joined by Shaun McNamee, who at the time of recording was CEO of Inbay, and now Financial Director of Inbay and Uptime, following the 2023 merger!    Wisdom shared included, outsource the non-core, what else can you sell and what will deliver the highest value?    We reviewed hybrid working challenges and opportunities for MSPs, Master MSPs, and end clients, which has ultimately led to improved access to talent for MSPs. A change for many in the market now enjoying portfolio careers with a global footprint, leading to diversity of choice for MSPs    Finally, we explored how best to start outsourcing by picking the low hanging fruit being, NOC then first line, working up to projects.  The key message being just to start!    We look forward to a future episode to explore Shaun's mergers and acquisitions (M&A) experiences gained working with KPMG and PWC, and what MSPs can take away.    Connect with Shaun McNamee on LinkedIn by clicking here - linkedin.com/in/shaunmcnamee     Connect with Daniel Welling on LinkedIn by clicking here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-welling-54659715/     Connect with Adam Morris on LinkedIn by clicking here – linkedin.com/in/adamcmorris     Visit The MSP Finance Team website, simply click here – https://www.mspfinanceteam.com/       We look forward to catching up with you on the next one. Stay tuned! 

Gavin Butchart is the Financial Director of Brenthurst Wealth and Head of Operations in Mauritius

Roots Financial Group has acquired 100% of the restaurant franchise Mother's Enterprise, plus they have a 5% equity stake in financial technology company WiPay Caribbean. We'll speak to the man behind the strategic growth plans Financial Director for Roots Financial Group, Kevin Donaldson. And THE ANALYSTS weigh in on the latest market developments… Scotiabank six-month results are out, how did they perform? And the Jamaica Stock Exchange is now among the worst performers in 2023. We'll discuss. ****************** JOIN THE MONEY MISSION: https://moneymission.mn.co ****************** OUR SEGMENTS: 0:00- Intro 2:02- What's Hot in Business 7:14- Discussion 37:58- Real Estate Webinar 44:57- Market Recap 52:28- The Analysts- Scotia Bank Results 1:01:17- The Analysts- JSE Among Worst in the World ******************* SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: https://kalilahreynolds.com/newsletter --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kalilahrey/support

Bio  A technology lawyer of some 40 years' experience, Richard has seen the IT industry from all sides - as an in-house lawyer with two substantial UK based systems houses, a lawyer in City of London practice and now as the head of his own practice offering legal services to IT companies large and small as well as acting as mediator and arbitrator in IT disputes.  Over the course of his career, Richard has been involved in some of the largest IT litigation and transactions and now gets involved in particular with Cloud contracting. When Richard set up his own private practice, the Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession described him as a “leader in his field” and as “good news on the most complex of matters”. Richard is a well known IT lawyer, having served two years as Chair of the Society for Computers & Law and is currently serving as Chair of the Legal Affairs Group at techUK. He has been a regular speaker at conferences both in the UK and internationally and has been providing training for over ten years: his annual lecture on Contract Law Developments attracts hundreds of attendees every year. More recently, he has ventured into writing with the publication of “Stephens on Contractual Indemnities” published by Law Brief Publishing.     Social media/ website(s): ·         LinkedIn: Richard Stephens on LinkedIn  ·         Richard's Website:  https://www.the-lors.co.uk   Books/References ·         ‘Stephens on Contractual Indemnities' by Richard Stephens – Law Brief Publishing   Interview Highlights 07:20 Don't leave any slippery bananas 09:15 Kicking the can down the street 15:20 Peppercorn rent 16:55 Blue v Ashley case 21:31 DSDM 22:40 Agile contracts 32:20 Atos Origin v De Beers 37:15 Hogjaard v EON    Episode Transcript  Ula Ojiaku Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. So, Richard, thank you so much for joining us on the Agile Innovation Leaders' podcast.    Richard Stephens Pleasure to be here.     Ula Ojiaku Fantastic. Now, as I start with all my guests, we want to know who Richard Stephens is. So, can you tell us about yourself?    Richard Stephens Well, it depends what you want to know Ula. I'm a solicitor, and it's not terribly exciting as professions go. So, I spend a lot of time reading long documents, commenting on them, marking them up, doing contracts. It's probably everyone's worst nightmare when it comes to a profession really, I suppose, I don't know.    Ula Ojiaku Well, I like the way you've just summarised your profession as reading long documents and making comments. I'm wondering if you ever had long debates over phrases and words in a document?    Richard Stephens Yes, that's what the job consists of. And when you get into negotiating big contracts, and over my career, I've done, I've been involved in huge global outsourcing of huge cloud contracts, huge this, huge that, huge development implementation contracts. The job consists of arguing about words and trying to get it right for your client to be honest, you don't want to leave any slippery bananas in there which are going to trip them up later on.    Ula Ojiaku So that phrase slippery bananas, we'll get back to it. But in the meantime, how did you end up in a career in law, because you said, the way you've described it, you said it's not the most exciting thing. So, there must have been something that still drew you to this, “non-exciting path”?    Richard Stephens Well, I don't know, really, you just, I don't know, why do you do anything when you're young, and you decide to become, you know, typically, young little boys will say, well, I want to be a train driver or whatever. And you just, as you grow up, you just become gravitated to do something, and there are a lot of us in our school who said they wanted to be lawyers, others said they wanted to be consultants or some wanted to be accountants, but you have to understand that I worked in a time when IT didn't really exist. So, I don't think there was anybody who wanted to go into technology, for example, because I was, you know, at school in the 70s. So that was very much an arcane shut away job where people would wear white coats and go into air conditioned, filtered air rooms to feed mainframe monsters. But of course, that sort of thing, we knew nothing about. I don't know, I don't know why I went into being a lawyer. I mean, I could have run away to the circus, I suppose, but I lacked the courage to do it, I suppose - too boring and unadventurous is typical lawyer you see.    Ula Ojiaku Okay, okay. Well, that's an interesting, will I say, narrative of your career to date. So, do you have any thing you would have done differently, knowing what you now know?    Richard Stephens I think I would have run away to the circus, Ula.    Ula Ojiaku Okay, well, that's an interesting response, Richard. Well, thanks for sharing your career story to date. And so, for someone who is, for example, listening, and that's considering a career in law that you know, no matter what stage in life they're at, what would be your advice?    Richard Stephens Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Robinson, I think is probably what I would say. You know, they're all different types of lawyers. And you can go through lawyers who do criminal work, for example, and I think some lawyers get a good deal of pleasure out of doing that sort of thing. I don't think the criminal lawyers make a huge amount of money out of it. Or a lot of people do very harrowing areas of law like family domestic law and they're dealing with battered people of, frankly, these days, both sexes and horrible emotional scars and, you know, battles over, but I, you know, I went to, did some of my CPD and I went to a talk given by a probate mediator. Now you think that probate was a nice sedate area of the law, but that's the most, he said, is the most vicious, dispute ridden thing, because he said all families will have secrets and they will harbour them. And he said, what will happen is that, you know, Aunt Maud dies, and she has some valuable art collection or something like that, and then all these little, all these little disputes and resentments that you had against your elder brother for 30 years suddenly all bubble to the surface. And he said, it all comes out as a horrible, vicious fight. People are going into Aunt Maud's house and stealing her property while she's dead. And they're arguing over who gets the fine china and who gets this and who gets that. He said, one of the horrible things is that you, know, when he does the settlement between the brothers or whoever it may be, and one of the clauses he's very often asked to put in is that such and such brother, should not ever again seek to contact him by phone, email, writing, or anything. So, you get that sort of thing as well. So, but you know why it is I would become a commercial lawyer, I say it's not that boring and actually, when you get in a deal, you get the excitement of trying to work the deal together, put it all together, bring it all together for the day of signature, I say there is a pressure, a dynamic, and every team has its own dynamic, and you're working towards getting something done. A bit like looking at your agile principles as well, I suppose. You know, you're trying to get it done. Although it's not done in incremental delivery, it's all done in one big drop at the end on the day of signature, of course.    Ula Ojiaku Now, that's an interesting story about, you know, different kinds of law, probate and going kindly back to commercial law, which you practice, if I'm correct in the understanding.    Richard Stephens That's right. I mean, I work for myself, when I say I do the big contracts, and I certainly do that, I work for SMEs as well, one of the things I also do is, I work as a mediator and an arbitrator in the IT sector. So, I'm there either helping people resolve disputes, or as an arbitrator, I'm actually resolving disputes, issuing binding awards. But I also provide some coaching in commercial law subjects as well. So, I do a variety of different things that helps keep my sanity.    Ula Ojiaku Now, the phrase slippery bananas because you said, you know, when you were, you know, you when you're drafting contracts, you make sure you're avoiding those slippery bananas. So, what's the perspective? Could you give us a glimpse into what goes on, you know, behind the scenes or in your mind, at the back of your mind when you're, you know, drafting, you're involved in drafting, and reviewing contracts on behalf of a client. What's the perspective you're doing this from?   Richard Stephens The first line is, and the first principle I start from is that projects, as has been said before, projects don't go wrong for terms of conditions. And I have a friend in the industry, who says that, and he, like me, works for himself. And he says that when he's doing a big contract or for a major client, he's up against a really big city of London law firm. He's there, he'll be negotiating the front end, as we call it, the terms and conditions, the legal bit, that goes at the front, the core of the contract, he'll spend days talking about liabilities and warranties and indemnities. He says, I'm talking with a partner of the law firm on that, he said, but when it comes to talking about the scope, the SLA, the charging schedule, all these things, he said, I end up negotiating with the trainee. He said, well, why does a contract go wrong? It won't be for anything to do with the indemnities or the liabilities or the warranties. They're there for after it has gone wrong. Why does it go wrong? It goes wrong for the things that are in the schedule, the operational things, that's the thing that you get wrong. And the second principle I move on to is this, that in my lifetime, I think drafting has simply got worse and worse and worse, and contracts have got longer and longer and longer. And so, having talked about slippery banana skins, then we now get on to another metaphor. And we talk about kicking the can down the street, as lawyers find it harder and harder to come to agreement on important issues, you know, when will such and such a sum be paid? You know, what you have to do to get acceptance of milestone three such that payment can be released. And so, they then insert modern drafting, like the parties will reasonably agree the amount to be released, and it's called kicking the can down the street, it's not actually legally binding. And it's not actually, it's nothing, it's a thing, it gets rid of the immediate problem. And all you're saying is that, you know, the judge or the arbitrator later on can make the decision for you, or you hope they can, they may just throw it out and say, well, it's not really an agreement at all. So that, I think, those are the things that I have noticed in my career, and those I think are the banana skins, the slippery bananas I try to avoid for my client wherever possible.    Ula Ojiaku Well, that's interesting, and how successful is it? Would you say that a good contract then, this is me stating my view and as a non-expert in this area, I would stand to be corrected by yourself. So, would a good contract be drafted in a way that enforces both parties to act in the best interests of the other, does it always result in a win-win situation?    Richard Stephens No, because I'm an English lawyer, I deal with the English common law. And the common law has typically, traditionally taken the line, and still, to a very large extent does, that each party looks after its own interests. I'm not here, when I represent a party, I'm not looking after the other party's interests at all. And my instructions, so to speak, or my implicit instructions, are to do the best deal for my clients, to do the worst deal for my opponent. Now, of course, that means I'm not actually trying to hamper them or hinder them or throw banana skins under their feet, because of course, if I hamper them or hinder them in the contract it could come back on me or come back on my client, I should say later on, if it's a long project, or outsourcing where the parties have to cooperate, so you do have to get a sort of balance. But the common laws approach, the English common law's approach is typically that each party is expected to enter into a contract, looking after its own interests, it's actually highly topical. I don't want to, you probably don't want to get into the riveting and fascinating details of English contract law, and it's sort of moving in practice and theoretically to adopting a, what you might call a more continental civil law approach by trying to import concepts of good faith (Note: Whilst correct at time of recording, the English Court of Appeal has since limited the use of the term 'good faith'), reasonableness, which are concepts I have to say, which are still by and large alien to my system of law, to the system of law, the country in which we live.    Ula Ojiaku Okay, wow. So, how then because, we've kind of dug into, you know, speaking about contracts for the, in the interest of the listener, who probably is just jumping in and wondering, okay, what are they talking about? What would you define a contract as?    Richard Stephens It's just a binding agreement for someone to do something for someone else and for the other to do something to the other party, which is normally payment, that's all it is. But contracts are all around us. And so, I mean, obviously, you know, it looks like you're sitting at home at the moment and you're not in an office. But if you, on the days or hopefully in the days to come when you go back into an office or you go to a physical meeting, and you might stop in a little shop somewhere and buy yourself a cup of coffee. Well, that's a contract. It's actually quite a complex contract as well, because it's a sale of goods and to some extent services, if they're making the coffee for you, in front of you. It imports therefore goods to the law to do with the sale of goods and services. It imports a whole lot of law to do with consumer law because you're a consumer buying a coffee, it's got a lot of law in there to do with health and safety because you know, you want your coffee shop to be a safe place from which to buy your beverage. So, if you actually look at that, and you took all the law and regulations relating to that very simple, I'll have a cappuccino, please, that you could probably fill a shelf with just the law and the cases dealing sales of goods and services, health and safety, consumer law, and all the rest of it. But you don't need to worry about that Ula, because all you want is your cappuccino at the end of the day. So, that is a contract and the contracts are all around us.    Ula Ojiaku And the seller I would dare say wants to be paid for the cup of cappuccino they made for me.    Richard Stephens That's the consideration, of course, that's traditionally the consideration, which has been a key feature, of course of English contract law, and not necessarily other systems of contract law, the Scots, for example, don't require consideration in their system of contract law. So, they don't require one party to do something for the other in exchange for something else, it can be a one-sided thing. But don't ask me how they get by, but they do. But the idea of consideration if you drew up, just to show, just to sort of mark out as it were, a casual deal, which you didn't really think was a contract from a proper contract. But a consideration can be anything, it can be a promise to do anything. It can be a promise to go for a walk around the park afterwards. So, I mean, it can be a thing of commercial, it can be commercially valueous. And that's why we have the concept of the peppercorn rent, if you've heard of a peppercorn rent?    Ula Ojiaku I'm not sure what that means. Could you explain please?    Richard Stephens Its where you rent a property, in exchange for the promise to pay a peppercorn, where the peppercorn has no commercial value at all. But it's a promise to hand over a peppercorn and the promise, and it's that promise that makes the contract a binding thing. You don't even have to hand it over. But if you promise to pay the peppercorn, that's the consideration. I'd like to see anyone suing someone else for a peppercorn but maybe the law reporters have got examples of that. I think not. But we need some levels of detail there.    Ula Ojiaku Oh, well, you might find me weird but I do find the concept of contracts interesting. And the fact that someone is promising a peppercorn, is it to show that there has been some sort of fair exchange between the two parties?    Richard Stephens It simply marks out a contract from what would otherwise be a gift. And it simply marks out what a contract is, so the law simply said, we want just these early signs, it only has to be basic, that the parties were actually serious about entering into a contract. And so, they required consideration, as a consideration can be commercially valueless. But it's just that the parties have thought to do something for each other. We won't even get into an intention to create legal relations, which is another requirement. And you still get some fantastic cases on that. And the case of Blue and Ashley recently,  which is where Mr. Blue worked for Mike Ashley of Sports Direct and they were all drinking heavily in the pub. And the evidence was at the end of the evening, that they consumed about 14,15 pints of beer by the end of the evening, although Mr. Blue wasn't present at that stage, but the evidence was that Mike Ashley said that if you can get my share price over eight pounds, then I will give you, you know, a huge bonus of several million pounds, I forget exactly how much it was. Well, is that a contract? And it went to the High Court and the High Court had to, well, what do you think, is that a contract or not? It was said the share price did go a bit over eight pounds and Mr. Blue carried on working there trying to make sure that the share price was maximized. He did actually get an ex gratia bonus of 1 million pounds from Sports Direct. So, did that make a contract?    Ula Ojiaku That's a question. Yes, because I audited a course in contract law being taught by a Harvard professor, so of course the focus is on the US laws and all that, so not necessarily here, but there's like intent of the person you know if it's a phrase that, or a statement that has been made jokingly, you know, how outrageous it is or whether the other party is being seen to get something in fair exchange, or whether it's a promise for a gift you know, so in those, in those situations, the three situations I've mentioned, it probably wouldn't hold water in a court of law if someone promised you a gift, because it's not contractually binding. But that's…    Richard Stephens You're learning legal skills already, because you know what you've done, don't you, you've actually used the word probably, you haven't committed yourself.    Ula Ojiaku No.    Richard Stephens And you've actually used the word probably because you're not willing to bet the farm on one decision, or the other, one resulting in the other, you know the old joke don't you about the client who goes into the solicitor's office and speaks to the receptionist and says, I want a meeting with the one-armed lawyer, please. The receptionist says we haven't got a one-armed lawyer here, why do you want to meet a one-armed lawyer and he said, well I'm fed up of meeting lawyers who say, well on the one hand this, and on the one hand that, but you've done it immediately, you've used that little word probably and it just came tumbling out in your speech, and you probably didn't even notice it. But I can recognise that you have legal skills already.    Ula Ojiaku Very kind of you Richard, that means a lot coming from you. But I do fancy myself going, you know, to go and do some sort of studies in law at some point in time. Wish me luck. But this brings us to the concept of agile. Have you had any experience with agile, and what does that mean to you, that term?    Richard Stephens Agile, I first got used to agile, when I was doing a lot of big scale litigation, when I was working in the city as a partner in a law firm there, and I did a lot of very large IT disputes, and it introduced me to some very odd concepts. And we had to get used to reading up about methods. And so, on some government projects, they mandated in those days, I don't know if they still do, but in those days, they were mandating the use of SSADM, and Prince overlaid on that as a management methodology. And we looked at this, and it was very odd, and I found it very strange, because what the SSADM and Prince would be doing would be mandating behaviours and actions that were flatly contradictory of the contract that had been written for the parties. And so, moving on from there, as agile became the big thing. We had, first of all, things like extreme programming, and that was getting everything going. And then other more formalised methods of Agile working, or Agile development came out, and I got involved with looking through DSDM as it then was, and thinking and the thing, the word that struck me was that everything will be fit for business purpose. And, of course, fit for purpose is very much a legal expression that's used in sales of goods contracts. And I thought, well, what does it mean to have an agile contract where you're promising the client that something is meant to be fit for business purpose, what is the business purpose? Did you know what it was before you started? What if it changes? I'm a lawyer, and I ask all of these questions. What if, what if, what if? And so I got very interested in writing DSDM, and I put together an industry committee of in-house lawyers working for tech companies and others, and we were just looking through Agile and we had a very senior person from the DSDM Consortium come and speak to us and train us on DSDM, and give us examples of how DSDM could deliver in a way that was better than the old waterfall method of delivery, especially when they were allied with the cumbersome approach of Prince 2 and so we got very interested in this, we tried thinking, well, what would an Agile contract, a contract for Agile development, actually look like? You know, how would it be different from what lawyers have been drafting up until that point and we had a go at it and we sort of let it sort of slip and slide and, you know, we all moved on to different things. And so, we never got there, but it's never gone away as a problem. And I think it is a problem. And I've given various ways I was a proponent of contracting for Agile development, Agile implementation at the time I was doing this, I find myself now cast in the role of villain. And Stewart, a chap called Stewart James has been taking the role of proponent of Agile contracts and I sort of, I the Devil's advocate, and I proposed a different way of working, and I just try and rubbish the view and so we had a go at each other there, we've had a go at each other at techUK if you know techUK, which is the industry body representing IT suppliers in the UK and we recently had another little go at each other in the BCS as a follow up to that talk we both attended over zoom. But interestingly, they had a poll at the end, and it garnered a huge amount of attention. We had a poll at the end of that having speakers do you have any confidence in the ability to contract for Agile and over 70% said they either had little confidence or no confidence in being able to contract for Agile. So…    Ula Ojiaku And why do you think there is that low confidence? What could be some of the root causes for this?    Richard Stephens  Oh, because I took them through the points I've made before, and I just pointed out that the Agile working doesn't fit in with English law, and we've already covered that up in a sense, because and I said to you that each party expects the English law, sorry, I should say English law expects each party to look after its own interests, and this idea of collaborative working, where you're working together to do the best you can with the resources available, and tried to come up with incremental deliveries, lots of short, sharp deliveries that give meaningful functionality to the customer, agreeing things on the fly, these things just don't sit very happily with the legal system that expects each party to look after its own interests. A legal system, which requires solid agreements, and which doesn't really regard reasonable endeavors, all these things and good faith doesn't regard these things as binding principles in law.    Ula Ojiaku Right, okay. Now, but in a case where, on one hand, you know, the two parties are more involved in the contract setting, as in, all right, we'll act in good faith, but at the same time, we would have our lawyers, our legal people, you know, put together an iron clad contract. Do you think that hypothetical situation is possible, in your experience?    Richard Stephens No, it's not, it's not possible at all, and that's the real problem. And I can take you through some of the cases that show this, if you like, referring to one of them, just got out the slide deck now, might be very interesting to you. It goes back to your first question, what's the point of a contract? Why have it? Because at the last outing I had, we had Andrew Craddock from the Agile Foundation, and he was proposing, you know, the benefits and the efficacy of agile, agile development, agile implementation. But of course, he was saying it's wonderful it, you know, beats waterfall hands down, it delivers all these great things and I said well, if it's that good, you probably don't need a contract anyway then, do you because it's never going to go into a dispute, then you don't need a contract. On the other hand, if you're a responsible business, you should be asking yourself as the directors of a responsible business, well what if the project doesn't go very well, what if it doesn't? What if it fails? What if I don't get what I expect at the end of the day, and on that point, I propose two reasons. And there are two reasons and both two sides of the same coin, for why an agile contract simply doesn't work. And the first reason is a legal reason. The other reason is a commercial reason. The second reason is what I call the FD principle, or the Financial Director principle. And the legal reason, to put it shortly is that the law, as I say, doesn't recognise a contract for good faith. And in any case, even if it did, you'd just be kicking the can down the street, because if you had a contract to do what you did in good faith, if it all went horribly wrong, which it inevitably will, how would you know whether someone had performed in good faith anyway? You just end up in another dispute, working out what the dispute was all about. So, and the second reason as I say is the FD principle, because while I was doing this DSDM thing, and I was chatting to a Financial Director of a good sized, medium sized company that was moving very much into IT and technology, it was mostly in the manufacturing sector, but very much absorbing IT, or what tech could do for it. And he said, look, I have the final sign off for any major expenditures, and I get a contract for 5 million pounds. He said, I want to know that at the end of the day, I've got something, when it's over that I that I can touch, I can feel with my fingers, hold with my hands. And I want to know that that's worth 5 million pounds, at least 5 million pounds to my business. And he said if I just get a contract that's agile, but people are simply saying well we'll work in good faith with each other, and we don't know what we'll deliver, but it'll be small, little bits incrementally and your you may or may not, to use the language of DSDM in the old days, you know, they have this concept of the minimum usable subset. And he said, well, is that worth 5 million pounds, because if that's only 60, 70%, of the full 5 million pounds, then I've been robbed, haven't I, and I've lost 30% of what I contracted for. And that's what I call therefore, the FD principle. And I remember when we were trying to draw up an agile contract, we were pulling teeth, trying to satisfy that FD, or his ilk that the contract would have some sort of effects, something that could be used to beat the supplier over the head. But I don't think we succeeded. And the problem is that every agile contract since, just drifts into this language, as you've said already, of good faith and reasonable endeavours and reasonable agreements on this. And these are all things that English law simply doesn't recognise.    Ula Ojiaku: Now, that's an interesting story. And you've just brought to light another perspective, that's not usually, explicitly considered in drafting contracts, which is that of the finances, the people who hold the purse strings, the people who sign off, you know, the projects or the programs of work. Sometimes, you know, people have the notion that, you know, agile is the be all and end all, it's not, there is still a place for waterfall. But waterfall is good for where you have straightforward issues, you have a problem, you know the solution, and there's a straight line from A to B, there's no need to go agile. But if it's a complex, adaptive problem where it's complex, and as things change, you know, the environmental change the nature of the problem, you know, keeps changing, you have to, well I say, adopt that agile approach to that now that's why the concept of a minimum viable product comes into play. And part of it is that, you know, you identify the minimum viable product, you state your assumptions, and then you, you know, create those, experiments based on the hypothesis of the assumptions you've made. And if you're validating, if your assumptions are validated, then you can go forward with, you know, the initiative. But if, at the very, you know, early instance, you're having negative results, you know, that negates your assumptions, then there's no need to go forward. Although from the Financial Director's perspective, you know, you say, okay, I've wasted it, I've been getting millions worth of money, but the learning has shown that it's a dead end we're moving towards, and it's better that we stop at a million than spending 10 million or even some other humongous amount on something that's probably not going to give any return.    Richard Stephens:  I think it's time to test your legal skills, again then.    Ula Ojiaku: I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a legal professional.    Richard Stephens:  I think you are a very modest lady indeed. I think you're probably going to go on and say you studied at the New York bar as well. But let me test your legal skills again, okay? And De Beers is the big diamond sorting diamond company in the world, as you may have heard of them, and Atos Origin are another company, you will doubtless have heard of, and they came to blows back in 2010, because they put out of ITT, for their diamond sorting and aggregating process, which, of course, is dealing with very high value things, namely diamonds. And so, it's all got to be it's a very difficult system to replicate and had all sorts of security and things built into it. So at first, they started doing the requirements analysis. And they did a mini survey, and they got their own view of what it was, and what was involved in doing this complex system. But they started work and found it was a hell of a lot more complex than they thought, and because De Beers and their operatives started asking for more and more and more, it got much more expensive. So, the original price was 2.9 million and Atos said well actually, it's going to cost nearly 5 million more than that to deliver everything you actually want. But it's interesting looking at what they said because, their Atos internal report said that this project was originally intended to be developed agile style, the team was organised into BAs who could refine the requirements and a pool of devs would be organised into teams to build elements of the solution incrementally, with a project beyond the requirements definition, set up Scrum star, this must be music to your ears, I would have thought Ula, all supported by an architect and a few key designer devs all very DSDM and can work fine in the right context. And of course, with the right customer. But what happened was, Atos said we need this extra 5 million odd to complete the project. De Beers said, I would have thought if anyone had, you know, 5 million pounds sitting around, it was like De Beers with all their diamonds, just sell a couple of those, I would have thought it was fine but they say get off site. And it all fell apart and they ended up in court. But which way did it go? So, you've got Atos, who's done the requirements analysis, they've done their best, they've tried to work out what was involved, they underbid. You've got De Beers that asked for more and more and more during the requirements analysis. Who wins at the end of the day? This is the time to put that Harvard training to use and no use of the word probably who won, someone won and someone lost.    Ula Ojiaku:  Before I answer your question, I'm just saying that I'm taking it in good faith you're not being sarcastic about my auditing the Harvard course online, but my answer to your question is going to be it depends, because all I know right now are the details you've given me and I know that there's usually more to a situation than meets the eye. So, it depends, again, I can see Atos's point of view, in the sense that if they did some sort of initial discovery work, and had given a quote, based on De Beers' requirements, now, and over time, you know, De Beers is asking for more, definitely that's called, you know, scope creep, and there might be some things, it inevitably would result in more costs. Now, on De Beers' hand, if they had been promised a pipe dream that agile is equal to cheaper, or fixed costs. So, they had also been working on a misinformed basis in the fact that if they thought, okay, yeah, agile solves everything, and it's going to be cheaper and faster. That's not true.    Richard Stephens:  So, we've got so far on the one hand this, and on the other hand that, so I'm looking for the one-armed lawyer now. I can see both your hands, Ula. You've got to decide, who wins?    Ula Ojiaku:  I think I wouldn't qualify for a one-armed lawyer. And the key thing is to know that I think it's the beginning of wisdom is to know that there is a limit to what I know. And in this case, it is definitely a good example. I don't know all the details behind it to make a firm judgment in favour or against one or the other.    Richard Stephens:  I think you know enough actually, come to have a go. Shall I tell you what the judge said?    Ula Ojiaku:  I'd like to know what the judge said please.    Richard Stephens:  In my judgment, he said, Atos went into this contract with its eyes at least half open, in the sense that it knew or should have known that it had not acquired a good grasp of the detail of De Beers diamond sorting and aggregating process. So, Atos lost is the important thing on that one. And because the general work, well, let me test your legal skills again, in case of Hojgaard and EON, okay.  This is all about constructing offshore wind turbines. Okay. You get a lot of those around, we don't see them because they're offshore, but you've seen wind turbines on land, and the employer, so the customer, in construction contracts they're known as the employer, mandated the use of an international standard called J101 for the construction of these wind turbines, okay. So Hojgaard had to use J101, or the methodologies for constructing wind turbines, as set out in that contract, in that international standard, I should say. Okay, so it started using J101. And what nobody knew was that J101, was fundamentally flawed. It had a design defect in it, and it underestimated the strength of the foundations needed to be built. So, as soon as they built these wind turbines, they started collapsing, and it cost 26 million pounds to put them right, 26 million euros, I think in those days. Okay. So, the question was, who was responsible? Well, Hojgaard said, well, you told me to use J101, so we only did what you said. And EON said, well, it doesn't matter, you're the provider, your supply, you should jolly well know, and you take the responsibility, so straightforwardly question. So no on the one hand..    Ula Ojiaku:  …on the other hand, straightforwardly answer. Again, based on the details you've set out I would say that EON is liable.    Richard Stephens:  EON is the employer. So, they've made the use of this standard.    Ula Ojiaku:  Yeah. So, my view is that EON is liable because they mandated the use of the standard. Now, that would be my view. Yeah, if that's the contract, and you know, you told someone build this for me and use this standard, because that's what we want. Now, as a responsible supplier, though, I would want to go to offer advice on what I think are the pros and cons of their decision. But finally, the client's decisions is theirs, so EON.    Richard Stephens:  So EON as the employer takes a rap, they have to cough up 26 million euros, went all the way to the Supreme Court, and they said it was the builders' responsibility. So even where the user has mandated that particular method, then it's the developer. The courts, they said are generally inclined to give full effect to the requirement that the item, as produced, complies with the prescribed criteria. Even if, even if the customer or employer has specified or approved the design, it's the contractor who can be expected to take the risk if he agreed to work to a design which would render the item incapable of meeting the criteria to which he has agreed. And it's not an inflexible rule of law, it's an approach of the courts. And this is one of the things that's highly relevant to agile because the parties are working cooperatively. And it may well be the customer that's mandating the use of, to get this result, or to use this method to get it and both parties are working in good faith. But when it all goes horribly wrong, which it inevitably will, the court's approach is generally, it's not mandated, you could put something different in your contract, the approach of the court is going to be well, it's the developer, it's the provider, it's the supplier, who's going to take the rap at the end of the day. And this is when you come back to the FD problem, because as soon as you then put something in your contract saying, nothing to do with us gov, it's all your responsibility, and we're not, you know, we'll just, we're just, you know, humble operatives doing as we're told, the FD's not going to sign off. He's gonna say, well, I'm paying my 5 million pounds, I want you to take some responsibility, I want you to take the responsibility at the end of the day. And as I say, these are the, these the interesting reasons why, in fact, trying to contract for agile is not so easy as you might think.    Ula Ojiaku:  So, what would be your recommendation then to, for example, leaders of organisations who want to continue with, you know, agile delivery, and agile ways of delivery and ways of working and wish to engage with their vendors. Because, on one hand, there are benefits to working in this manner, in the sense that you're working together, you're learning and then you are adapting your plan based on the new learnings. But on the other hand, it seems like there is a way to go in bringing up you know, bringing along legal colleagues and colleagues in finance, alongside this journey to have the same perspective, what would be your advice?    Richard Stephens:  One of the things is I fully accept all the good things that agile has done and all the good things it promises to do, but what I'm saying is contracting for that is very difficult, and if you end up with a contract that simply proceeds in talking about, you know, good faith, and many lawyers, many modern lawyers these days just lapse into this language of you know, we'll talk in good faith and reasonably agree this and reasonably agree that, and it doesn't really work, you end up with a contract that's just kicked the can down the street numerous times. And so, you need to come up with something that does actually have some teeth, and with agile, that's going to be difficult. I mean, there are ways of drafting around it, but it's, in some ways they're quite cumbersome. So, for example, you can have agreements to agree which are meaningless in English law, English law simply doesn't recognise an agreement to agree and you can add as many good faiths and reasonables around it as you like, but what you can do is you can then say, well, one of the drafting techniques you can use is to say, well, if we don't agree after a period of one week, three months, six months, whatever it is, that a third party, adjudicator will make the decision or the arbitrator or whatever it may be, will make the decision effectively for us, and we'll provide some criteria for that person to make a decision for us. Now in the construction industry, they introduced what's known as an adjudication scheme, which is a fix first and fight later, effectively. So, it's simply that if the parties get a dispute rather than just simply falling out with each other and having a huge arbitration, leaving the building unfinished, you get an adjudicator and it's now compulsory by law for domestic construction contracts, and the adjudicator comes in and just makes a quick decision, and it doesn't really matter that it's not ultimately binding, for the present purposes it is, I think it's been called temporary finality. And one of the things that the Society for Computers and Law has done is introduce a similar adjudication scheme for IT projects. Now, that's maybe one way to go, but of course there are two risks immediately with that, which you'd have to advise anybody on and that is, obviously it introduces a certain amount of delay and cost because the party is going to get into lots of little micro-spats trying to get up to come if they have lots of little adjudications in a major project. And the other problem, of course, is this problem of temporary finality. Once the adjudicator has issued his decision, then you've got to comply with it, even if you think it's wrong, or even if you think it's monstrously unfair, or very expensive for you. It's temporarily final, and then you'd have to wait till the very end of the project before you could then relitigate the matter. So, I mean, there are ways of getting around it. But as I say they're not necessarily risk free or problem free. Let's say one of the problems I find, and for the purposes of my talks on agile, taking devil's advocate, one of the things you can do is do a word search of any English contract, English law contract, and just count up the number of reasonables or reasonablys in good faith. Actually one agile contract I looked at, which is available from an online supplier, provider of legal services, over 36 pages, it had a staggering total of 29 reasonables,s 26 reasonablys and 4 good faiths. I mean, that is a very high batting average for using these rather horrible terms that in many cases don't really mean anything. So, you have been warned.    Ula Ojiaku:  Well, thank you, Richard, for that. I would take it then that these are your guidelines for anyone who is considering drafting agile contracts, be careful about how you go about it. It's not risk free, and there are pitfalls to be aware of, and I guess it also depends on the jurisdiction, you know, the legal jurisdiction where the contract would be.    Richard Stephens:  You're never going to get away from that, because as soon as you start using words like a reasonable endeavours, good faith, even if the legal system you're working under actually recognises them, you then have a dispute trying to work out what on earth it means in practice, and you want a really good example of that, what's a contract under Belgian law that we all know about at the moment, and everyone's been talking about it, have a guess? It's the AstraZeneca contract with the EU Commission, and what's a horrible phrase it uses, best reasonable efforts, a monstrosity. So not just reasonable efforts, but best reasonable efforts. Belgian law recognises that as a concept and English law does as well. But what on earth does it mean? What does it mean in practice? What behaviour does it mandate? What result does it mandate? And so, the parties then just lumber into the dispute, a dispute a dispute about the dispute because nobody really knows what they're supposed to be doing anyway. So, you can do it, but you have been warned.    Ula Ojiaku:  Now, to wrap up, based on our conversation, are there any books that you could, that you would recommend to the listeners, if they want to learn more about contracting, agile?    Richard Stephens:  That's the book, Ula, Stephens on Contractual Indemnities. I mean, what a right riveting read. Thrilling from beginning to end, and it will tell you everything you've ever wanted to know.    Ula Ojiaku:  Fantastic, thanks for sharing. We will put the link to your book in the show notes alongside with everything else about this episode.    Richard Stephens:  It's for lawyers only. Otherwise, don't open its covers, you will be horrified. Well, actually, I mean, as a lawyer, as you proved yourself to be, maybe you would find it interesting.    Ula Ojiaku:  Now, do you have any, anything you'd like to ask of the audience, or let them know about your practice?    Richard Stephens:  Yeah, I mean, as I say, I do three things which may be of interest to your audience out there. One is, I'm a commercial solicitor, who is very well experienced in these areas in terms of putting together contracts for developments implementations, agile, or otherwise. And I provide training not only to lawyers, I do this one-day course introducing people to the principles of contract law, insofar as it would affect professionals working in the IT industry. And I've had people come on that, who were Project Managers all the way up through to Board Directors of SMEs or even quite large companies. I had one major American international company send its commercial management team on that course, for example. And as I say, the other thing I do is I work as a mediator if you're in a dispute, and you want someone to try and facilitate a resolution to that dispute, then again, I can help you with that. I could even, if he's got an arbitration clause, you want to have an arbitrator appointed someone who understands a little bit about these things and can come to a legal decision on your dispute, I can do that too.    Ula Ojiaku:  Fantastic. Thanks for sharing those. And with respect to for example, your trainings and you know, the other services you offer, how can the audience reach you?    Richard Stephens: As usual these days, they can Google for me, and if you look up for Richard Stephens there are various academics and I think, artists who are masquerading as Richard Stephens, just put Richard Stephens Solicitor, you will find me and you will find my website, and you can find me or you can search for me on LinkedIn, all sorts of possibilities. So that's very easily done.    Ula Ojiaku:  Okay. Well, I have to say, from my experience, but maybe I'm not good at googling, but the last time I tried finding you on LinkedIn, even though I'd put solicitor against your name, I still had a lot of what's it called, results for Richard Stephens solicitor. So, what I'm going to do to make it easier for the audience is I'm going to put a direct link to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes, if that's okay with.    Richard Stephens:  Yes, you can do that, link into, connect to my LinkedIn profile, or link to my website. It's very easy, no objection to that.    Ula Ojiaku:  Okay. Fantastic. So, any final words for the audience before we close this out? It's been a great conversation so far.    Richard Stephens:  It's been it's been nice, I mean it's funny how this is a problem, which I first got involved in 25, 30 years ago. And it rumbles along as an issue for IT lawyers. It's never lost its interest. But in 25 or 30 years, equally, I haven't seen a particularly good resolution to the problem, either. And so, you've got the industry doing one thing, and the lawyers trying to play, not so much catch up, but trying to work out still after 25, 30 years of lawyers thinking about it, what an agile contract or a contract for an agile project would look like such that it was both legally effective and would satisfy that avaricious Financial Director. But it hasn't been resolved yet.    Ula Ojiaku:  And the question is, will it? You don't have to answer, well…    Richard Stephens:  There is a sort of, there are all sorts of resolutions out there. As I mentioned, the adjudication one, but that, then is the sort of thing you don't want in an agile project because it's, whilst it's legally effective, the idea of Agile as you're working cooperatively together, and then having little micro adjudications where you're at war with each other, trying to get the best out of the adjudicator in terms of decision. It then actually tends to drive the parties further away, which is, goes against what you did an agile project for in the first place. So, I mean, you can do but, you know, I just don't know how it would work in practice.    Ula Ojiaku:  It's been great speaking with you, Richard, thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge and experience with the audience and myself.    Richard Stephens:  Pleasure.    Ula Ojiaku:  That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!  

Interview with Boipelo Lekubo, Financial Director of Harmony Gold (NYSE: HMY)Harmony is the largest gold producer by volume in South Africa and is a significant operator of gold tailings retreatment facilities. In Papua New Guinea, Harmony owns and operates the Hidden Valley mine and owns 50% of the Tier 1 Wafi-Golpu copper-gold project. Harmony recently acquired 100% of the Eva Copper project, a near-term copper project in Queensland, Australia. 

In conversation with Wanda Bowman Financial Director an Author of the book called “Financial Glow Up” living in Michigan, USA.  With 12 years as a Financial Director at a Fortune 29 company, Bowman is leveraging over 20 years of experience to help others make informed decisions about their money. In this episode we had a super conversation about servant leadership; being an active versus participating leader; the boomerang effect of leadership; building executive presence and as a family how to act as a Corporation to multiply your money to gain financial independence. To continue to conversation with Ms. Bowman, head over to her website: WandaBowman.com I would love to get your feedback always so please do connect with me here at https://ireniaroussel.org and also subscribe to this podcast. I invite you to head over to the sister podcast, the Canadian Side Hustle and Business Podcast to check out the fantastic Canadian guests. Thank you for your support. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/irenia/message

Hallo liebe Zukunftsmacher! In der heutigen Folge geht es um die Frage, wie wir das größte Problem der Menschheit lösen: die Energieversorgung. Mit dieser Frage beschäftigt sich auch das 2020 gegründete Unternehmen HB11 des renommierten deutsch-australischen Physik-Professors Heinrich Hora. HB11 arbeitet an der Erforschung und Entwicklung einer laser-induzierten Kernfusion von Wasserstoff- und Bor-11-Atomen. Auf dem 2b AHEAD Zukunftskongress stellt Jan Kirchhoff, Financial Director, die Arbeit des australischen Unternehmens vor und wie es in Zukunft gelingen soll, saubere, sichere und unerschöpfliche Energie zu erzeugen. Wie sicher Kernfusion überhaupt ist, wie weit die Forschung schon ist und wie die Chancen stehen, dass wir das Energieproblem der Menschheit lösen, erfährst du in dieser Folge. 2b AHEAD Zukunftskongress 2023 – Sichere Dir jetzt Dein Ticket: https://zukunftskongress.2bahead.com/  Du willst wissen, wie Du im Jahr 2030 leben, lieben und arbeiten wirst? Dann schau in mein Buch „2030 – Dein Weg zum Zukunfts-ICH“: https://2030.janszky.de/  Du willst die Start-up-Welt in Tel Aviv oder Silicon Valley kennenlernen und mit mir auf eine echte Reise in die Zukunft gehen? Dann klicke jetzt hier: https://reisen.2bahead.com/ 

Gavin Butchart is the Financial Director of Brenthurst Wealth and Head of Operations in Mauritius

Author David Freedman talks about how his fascinating book, "Laws of Success" can positively impact people's lives. Including folks affected by irritable bowel conditions. David has written these laws while working many hours as a full-time finance director in the healthcare industry. We had a very pleasant and informative conversation. The best way to contact and connect with David Freedman is on LinkedIn. Please subscribe and share this podcast for Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis awareness worldwide. Support the Crohn's Veteran website and merch store: www.crohnsveteran.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/crohns-veteran-podcast/message

Author David Freedman talks about how his fascinating book, "Laws of Success" can positively impact people's lives. Including folks affected by irritable bowel conditions. David has written these laws while working many hours as a full-time finance director in the healthcare industry. We had a very pleasant and informative conversation. The best way to contact and connect with David Freedman is on LinkedIn. Please subscribe and share this podcast for Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis awareness worldwide. Support the Crohn's Veteran website and merch store: www.crohnsveteran.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/crohns-veteran-podcast/message

The Reverend and the Reprobate sit down with Reverend friend, Dr Ryan Winders. Dr. Winders talks about his journey to collect every game released on the original Nintentdo Entertainment System. Ryan tells the  @RevRepPodcast  how he was able to finish this incredible collection and then proceeds to tell them one of the craziest stories in WWE history infamously known as the "Montreal Screw Job"   While at the University of Kentucky, Ryan majored in Secondary Mathematics Education, receiving His Bachelor's in 2005 and my Master's in 2007.  During my time there, He was involved in Alpha Tau Omega, serving as the Chaplain for  1 year; UK Choristers and Men's Chorus; and the Baptist Student Union, where He served in several offices.  Ryan also was a founding member of an organization called "The Rock" which was a non-denominational Christian organization aimed at  Fraternity and Sorority members. The summers of his college years & post-college years were full of adventure.  He served as a Financial Director for LifeWay Christian Resources for 7 summers, and was fortunate enough to travel the country and meet people from all walks of life. Ryan worked in Florida, Tennessee, Maryland, West Virginia, Michigan, South Carolina, California, New Mexico, Kentucky, and Hawaii. After college, he worked as a High School Math Teacher in Lexington, KY at several different high schools, gaining valuable experience in a multitude of backgrounds.  At first, he worked solely with ESL students and refugees and middle-class families in the public school system before moving  to a private Christian school.   It was during this time that He chose to complete his second Master's in Guidance Counseling from the University of the Cumberlands.  After completing two years of a Master's in one year, Ryan accepted a position as a Guidance Counselor at George Rogers Clark High School.  While there, He worked with 10th-12th Graders and created a College and Career Readiness system that helped the school become a "School of Distinction".   After three years as a guidance counselor, Ryan began to work on his Doctoral Degree in Educational Leadership at Morehead State University.  He completed his Dissertation in 2019 titled, "Preparing Students for the Next Level: Using 3:1 Supports to Eliminate the Transition Gap".  His research was based off a program implemented at Frankfort High School in Frankfort, KY. The high school uses a combination of technology, community members/resources, and local college resources to give students more responsibility of their own education, while holding them accountable in all aspects of student growth. After graduating with my Ed.D., He accepted his current position as Assistant Professor of Education at Union College in Barbourville, KY. At Union, Ryan teaches Graduate and Undergraduate classes in the areas of Educational Technology, Instructional Design, Mathematics,  and Professional Writing - while also serving as the Education Department's Assessment Coordinator and swim coach Check out Ryan Here: insta: https://www.instagram.com/winders111/ Rev and Rep Linktr.ee (all the show links can be found below) https://linktr.ee/revreppodcast

A good showing from Sanlam's life insurance and asset management businesses has been offset by a downbeat performance from its general insurance unit. The firm has posted an 8% decline in interim headline earnings, as adverse weather conditions and rising claim costs weighed. Business Day TV discussed the insurers results with Financial Director, Abigail Mukhuba

This episode features Natalie Mahlmann who serves our community in many ways. She is the Administrative Assistant for the Valparaiso Police, Financial Director at GreatNews.Life, and is a founding member of the GreatNews.Life team with her husband & Founder, Chris Mahlmann. Natalie is known to be one of the kindest community members we have here in the region. Get to know her here! GreatNews.Life and Podcast Host Jenny Craig-Brown have transformed the All About the Girls annual event into a podcast! These monthly episodes feature incredible women giving the audience all the insight about what makes them happy, successful, and motivational. New episodes launch on Sundays to make sure to start your week on a positive note! The All About the Podcast is brought to you by GreatNews.Life 

If software has a dangerous and easy-to-exploit security vulnerability, should its maker tell customers to shut it down until it's fixed? It's a tough call, but one that Dutch company Hoppenbrouwers says the software vendor Kaseya should have undertaken last year to prevent a massive supply-chain attack executed by the REvil ransomware gang. The gang had uncovered flaws in Kaseya's Virtual Systems Administrator product that Kaseya was racing to patch. Hoppenbrouwers was one of more than 1,500 victims. Its systems were nearly completely encrypted, but it recovered quickly using backups. Transcript for this episode is here. Speakers: Marcel de Boer, Financial Director, Hoppenbrouwers; Jeremy Kirk, Executive Editor, Information Security Media Group. Production Coordinator: Rashmi Ramesh The Ransomware Files theme song by Chris Gilbert/© Ordinary Weirdos Records Music by Podcastmusic.com Follow The Ransomware Files on Twitter: @ransomwarefiles Follow The Ransomware Files on Instagram: @theransomwarefiles

Bryan Kim is a 34-year-old Yellow American revolutionary from Shingle Springs, CA. He is the co-founder and Financial Director of the People's Housing Project, a grassroots organization that provides emergency shelters and support services like trash/needle pickup and toilets to houseless camps in Portland. He also serves as the Political Director for Decriminalize Nature Portland, an organization dedicated to decriminalizing the cultivation and personal ceremonial use of psychedelic plants and fungi for mental health and spiritual growth. Since his start with climate justice at Greenpeace in 2011, Bryan has been a leader and organizer for social and housing justice. In 2013, he founded Moderate Majority Foundation, which gave grants to veterans in San Diego on the edge of homelessness to keep them in their housing, and for which he served as Executive Director for 4 years. In 2018, he ran for Congress in CA-53 as an independent progressive. The work of his life is to elevate the consciousness of oppressed peoples in such a way that will result in them taking concrete action towards the end of their oppression. His political inspirations are Huey P. Newton and John Brown. His spiritual inspirations are Miyamoto Musashi and the historical Jesus. "In His House at Lake Merritt Dead Huey Waits, Dreaming"In this episode, Bryan and Zave talk to Maxwell about houseless, homeless, peoples housing project, emergency shelters, shelter is a human right, mental health issues, hard to get identification, sweeps destroy important documents, city wastes money, handing out tents and sleeping bags, job interviews, high rate of queer youth, capitalist politics, Kaiser, Blue Cross, Phizer, Andrew Carnegie, banning the feeding of the homeless, and addiction support. All production by Cody Maxwell. Artwork by Cody Maxwell. Opening graphic assets by UlyanaStudio and Grandphic.sharkfyn.com/maxwells-kitchen-podcast

With his extensive Financial Qualifications and operational experience in the Financial Services and Banking Sector, Mark founded Debt-IN (Now Capability Working Capital Solutions) in 2008. His hands-on approach, keen operational insight and extensive financial qualifications and experience saw the need to expand offerings to the broader Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) markets, both locally and aboard. Natural progression saw the formation of an umbrella brand, Capability BPO, which enabled the business to strategically transform to include the International Market, serving US and European based companies. Mark has a key focus on bringing the human touch to the BPO Sector, with the sole purpose of encouraging effective communications; making the connection a rewarding engagement every time. Passionate about the people who work for him, Mark is driven to making a positive impact on people's lives and the greater South Africa. With over a decade in the financial sector servicing blue chip industry leaders, Capability BPO's focus is on continuously improving and upskilling all members of the Company whilst instilling a culture of caring and collaboration amongst the workforce. This has resulted in the Capability BPO Group becoming one of the leaders in Business Process Outsourcing, Debt Collection and Credit Risk Management respectively. Mark graduated with his B. Com degree in 1992. After working for a steel fabrication and construction company for 5 years and having attained the position of Financial Director he resigned to further his studies full time. A year later he graduated with his B.Com Honours degree and sat for the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants board exam in the first half of 1999, which he passed and attained the CIMA qualification. Links: https://www.capabilitybpo.com/ Mark Essy on LinkedIn Marianne on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marianne-rutz/ Rutz Consulting Website: https://rutzconsulting.com/     This Podcast is produced by: Andrew Madden Photography & Media Production

In this episode, we talk with Kathy Ligon, a titan in the child care space. She's someone who has not only taken the child care real estate industry by storm, but also has become a sought-after resource and source of inspiration for child care business owners and operators looking to think more strategically and grow their operations.At the helm of HINGE Brokers for more than 17 years, Kathy has amassed a wealth of knowledge that addresses the gamut of child care business issues. In this chat, you'll hear about:How Kathy works with child care business owners to purchase new locations or exit their businesses successfully. Kathy's child care financial model for success – something she's been perfecting for 25 years.A preview of Kathy's new app called Framework, which will assess a center's total financial health and provide guidance on how to improve it. Current trends Kathy's seeing in the child care space, including more government funding.The upcoming SHIFT Childcare Leaders Conference, an inspirational and informative event aimed at giving owners and operators clear strategies they can use to grow their businesses. About Kathy:Trained as a public accountant, Kathy has a unique 30+ year background in educational operations. Early on, she was named Financial Director for a growing educational organization and subsequently moved to COO, directing growth management and helping the company multiply from five to 125 sites operating in several different states. During this time, she gained a wealth of knowledge in growth strategy, target selection, pricing and negotiation, cultural analysis and post-closing integration tactics.In 2003, Kathy started her own early education brokerage firm—called HINGE Brokers, providing support to the private early education sector by developing price analyses, negotiating strategies and matching buyers with sellers. Her important work has led to the successful transactions of more than 250 early education business.If you want to learn more about Kathy's incredible work, including her annual SHIFT Conference, check out the following links:  Website: https://www.hingebrokers.com/SHIFT Conference: https://www.hingebrokers.com/shift-conferenceAdditional Resources: To get more insights on ways to succeed in your child care business, head over to our Resource Center at https://www.procaresoftware.com/resource-center/. Contact Us: Have an idea for a podcast or want to be a guest? Email us at podcast@procaresoftware.com.   

Celtic Soul Podcast Episode 58 with More than 90 Minutes, Editor Andrew Milne chatting to David LowDavid Low is Chair of the Celtic Trust. He is a Celtic fan and has been lucky enough to enjoy not one but two 9IAR's and see Celtic reach 2 European Cup finals and enjoyed the recent quadruple treble. He was involved with Fergus McCann back in 1994 when the rebels won and the old board was ousted. He was a consultant at Celtic during the McCann years which saw Celtic Park redeveloped and Celtic stop Rangers doing the 10IAR.A lot has happened since January when David last chatted to Andrew on the Podcast. Neil Lennon has left the dugout, Peter Lawell is getting ready to leave the directors box and we await the arrival of new CEO Dominic McKay as we wait to see who will become our next Manager. David and Jeanette Findlay represented the Celtic Trust with a meeting with Celtic, CEO Peter Lawell, Financial Director, Chris McKay and Supporters Liason Officer John Paul Taylor recently and he talks about what was said and proposed at the meeting.David quickly explains how the PLC works before going into detail of one of the major talking points of the meeting when the Trust made a proposal to Celtic to compensate the season ticket holders from this season with the option of a gift of shares to the value of the season ticket after you take out the costs of the virtual season ticket.Covid19 and the fallout will continue to have an impact on Celtic and the greater football World David thinks that it may excelorate a European Super League and a chance for Celtic to play outside of Scotland and this was also touched on at the recent meeting in Celtic Park.Andrew asks David to switch from his Celtic fans hat and his financial background on occasions as the conversation flows from what could and should happen at Celtic and in the wider football community with the likes of European Super Powers like Barcelona and Real Madrid heading into serious financial troubled waters.They touch on the management vacancy at Celtic, player exit and maybe more departures from the boardroom. On the new CEO, Dominic McKay who David does not know personally but he says one of his business partners does and he gives his opinion on what he does know of him and he looks back at all the CEO's who have served the club since Fergus McCann took up that position in the boardroom. Peter talks about recent statements and the growth of the Celtic Trust their current shareholding and the targets they are setting and goals they want to achieve to give Celtic fans, a greater say in the running of Celtic.They also touch on Celtic v the Rangers, Glasgow Derby and David climbs back into the Celtic Soul Time machine again, this time Andrew asks him to take us back to his time as a consultant at Celtic. This leads to David having a pop at the SFA for their treatment of Celtic including how they ripped Celtic off when renting Hampden and also how Fergus McCann stood up to the SFA and how the Suits at the club should be nowhere near the Tracksuits. Follow The Celtic Trust on Twitter @TheCelticTrustFollow David Low on Twitter @HeavidorFollow Andrew Milne on Twitter @AndrewMilne12Playout Tune The Fields of Athenry performed by Ronan McQuillan and friends for the Irish Rambles Nantucket - Bridge of Culture click link below to watch videohttps://youtu.be/KWuzoJaSFVsEpisode Sponsors More than 90 Minutes More than 90 Minutes Issue 114 Print Edition & Digital Edition is now on sale Click Link to buy Print or Digital Edition https://celticfanzine.com/product-category/new-issue/More than 90 Minutes Celtic Fanzine Subscription Detailshttps://celticfanzine.com/product-category/monthly-print-subscription/This Episodes Listeners Offer: Sale on selected Merchandise & T-Shirts https://celticfanzine.com/shop/If your business or CSC like the Podcast and would like to become a sponsor please email us at info@celticfanzine.com. You can also contact us through the website or message us on social media. Further ListeningAll Podcasts available on all Platforms or click link belowhttps://celticfanzine.com/podcasts/Follow Us FB https://www.facebook.com/Mt90MTwitter @celticfanzineInsta celticfanzineLinkedIn More than 90 Minutes Episode 58 was Produced by Ronan McQuillan If you would like to support our Independent Celtic Fan Media Platform you can become a Member, Subscribe, Buy or Donate for the Price of a Pint. Your Support helps us continue to produce Daily News & Articles, Weekly Newsletter, Weekly Podcasts, Monthly Fanzine, Video Content & Live Shows.https://celticfanzine.com/join-us/https://celticfanzine.com/product-category/monthly-print-subscriptionhttps://celticfanzine.com/shop/https://celticfanzine.com/donations-page/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this episode I share my interview with Aimee Bateman, Founder and CEO of Career Cake; a company pioneering the way we learn and enabling others to be seen, heard and valued. Winner of several awards since 2010, Aimee was recently awarded by Wales online the Entrepreneur of the Year. On work-life balance; It changes depending what time of month it is or year or what's going on in my life. Work-life balance is such a personal thing. Firstly do you like your work. If you like your work, then work work-life balance isn't really an issue. Background Doing what you love and enjoy is the reason why I started my company. Everybody deserves 8 hours a day to go somewhere where they feel seen, heard and valued so that it impacts the rest of their lives. Aimee started off as a commercial recruiter. In 2010 there were an extreme amount of talented people who found themselves out of work in South Wales. The focus of the recruiter (at the time) was on placing people in roles for companies; not necessarily focusing on the people themselves. This didn't sit well with 29 year old Aimee who was about to earn a big commission on the back of placing someone in an Financial Director role! In that moment everything changed. Careercake On the back of that moment, Aimee went home and bought a cheap camera on eBay and started making videos in her kitchen. Videos that would teach people how they would not need people like her. These included 'How to'; Write your own CV Get your own interviews Contact people via email to get an interview All with a view to helping people power themselves and take control of their own situation. It was 2010 and no one was really doing anything with videos at that time. In 5 years Aimee received over 42 million views on YouTube. Today, people and organisations are paying for subscriptions in 42 different countries. Careercake is helping people to be awesome; how to be seen, heard and valued in their job. Making a difference What you see is what you get with Aimee. Most of her teenage years were spent in foster care. This had an effect on her self esteem and has driven her onward in her life. Having been to university and got her first job in recruitment, her self esteem changed completely. To the point that it was oozing out of her! A lot of that came through being in a job where she was valued. Admittedly, Aimee lost her way a little bit. For a couple of years she lost her 'why' she was doing it. Having celebrated her 30th birthday in Ibiza with her friends, she returned and registered the domain Careercake. Find out more Finally if you would like to start a conversation with Aimee, you can find her on; Twitter LinkedIn More details can be found on the Careercake website. If you enjoyed this episode you can leave the show a rating and review on iTunes or the platform that you use to listen to podcasts. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/perfectimbalance4/message

If you're a math person and like working with numbers, this career might be a good one for you to consider! On this week's episode, I chat with my friend Kevin Zhou who works as a finance director for Georgia Pacific. Listen as Kevin explains what responsibilities his job entails and why he finds what he does to be fulfilling. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blair-kim/support

Meet Caroline Willis, Financial Director of Shelbourne Motors. Shelbourne Motors is an award-winning car dealers based in Northern Ireland, specialising in New and Used Cars, Servicing, Parts, Accessories and Rental.  

Today in Episode 16 our guest is Todor Petkov,He is a leader that in the last 16 years went through the corporate ladderwith positions like Head of Planning & Reporting, Financial Director, CFO, General Manager and Program Director.Today we are happy to share some of his experience.To your Leadership Growth,Kal PetroffOmnipotent Growth

Seán Fleming, currently Fianna Fáil TD for Laois, if the gods of the ballot box smile on him he might become the Fianna Fáil TD for the reconstituted constituency of Laois Offaly. He's been a TD since 1997 and for 15 years before that he was Financial Director of Fianna Fáil at national level. Gavin […]