ICAS’s top Scottish accountants under 35 in profile

The global body of finance professionals said the list, which includes entries spanning six continents, recognises “the best and brightest Chartered Accountants who are making a difference to the profession and to society”.

For the next 15 days Scottish Financial News will be profiling each of the Scottish representatives.

Today we profile: Brian Toward CA, 30, who is nominated in the Entrepreneurship Category.

More information on ICAS’s 35 Chartered Accountants (CAs) under 35.

Brian Toward CA, IT & Finance Director, Wholesale Domestic, Glasgow

Brian trained as a CA with Deloitte and was part of the technology risk team, working on extremely high profile clients, delivering a mixture of audit support and consultancy based engagements. After rising to the rank of manager, Brian decided to transfer his skills to his family’s 50-year-old bathroom retail company, Wholesale Domestic.

“When I joined Wholesale Domestic, I quickly discovered there was a lack of an IT based stock management system, processes that had been passed through the years with no revision or change, a lack of HR control and a finance function that operated but never excelled. Fast forward three years and we now run the business through an entity wide ERP system with full stock management and control, all staff have documented processes to follow for all tasks, employment contracts exist for all members of the company and the finance function produces monthly management numbers against budgets and targets.

Within three months of joining I took the business online and we now retail 24 hours a day throughout the UK - the result of which has seen turnover in a 50-year-old business double in three years and the number of full time staff increase from 35 to 49.

Our competition changed from local firms to national companies very quickly and as a result we had to support this through the narrowing of our supply chain and review of product offering. We now source product from throughout the world and bring this to market at a price and quality which allows us to be considered a UK firm as opposed to a Glasgow one.

As I write we are putting the final coats of paint on our new 133,000 sq ft warehouse and distribution centre to open summer 2016, which will see more staff added and the ability to serve our ever growing customer base better. This represents a massive leap for a company that always managed stock and fulfilled orders from a 30,000 square ft facility.

In my time with the company, now as IT & Finance Director, the business has been nominated for several awards and we have established connections with Business Gateway, Glasgow City Council and Scottish Enterprise. All of which are required to push through our ambitious growth targets.

I am most proud of what we have achieved with the local employability schemes taking over 20 young trainees with no route to employment and providing them with skills and experience to allow them to seek their first step on their career journey. This has proven so successful for us that 11 of them have earned full time employment with us and several others have had the boost to go on and work with other leading Scottish businesses. I truly believe that the education that the CA gave me has allowed me to revitalise an established business with the promise of becoming larger and give it the required boost to get there. Being able to consider Wholesale Domestic as a national competitor in our industry is great reward for the seeds I planted but then ultimately grown by my staff and colleagues.

“I simply cannot stress how much the rounded nature of the CA qualification has set me up for my current role. Having the ability to understand how a business operates from the roots to the tips has allowed me to come into my current role, review processes that have been operating for decades and implement sweeping changes which have resulted in efficiency changes and business growth. I really took some of the smaller parts of the course for granted when doing them, but they now feature in my daily routine. Some examples would be the ethics part of the education which I practice every day, the personal taxation modules which have allowed me to help my staff with questions both in and out of work, the business systems sections which have allowed me to implement best practice and most importantly pulling all sections together in the final stages of the qualification which has given me the ability to sit back and analyse my business from a distance and be objective as to where it could be improved. As stated above, the CA has been invaluable to myself as an individual, Wholesale Domestic as a business and in turn the growing number of staff we employ and suppliers we deal with”.