The supportive environment and excellent tutors at Reed Business School first helped Ian succeed in his accountancy studies while studying at the Manor in 2002. Now, he’s a successful chartered accountant who runs his own firm, The Academy Partnership, and works closely with Reed Business School to train his employees to the same high standard he achieved as a student.
Here Ian tells us about his experience studying at Reed Business School and why it’s the only place he trusts to teach his employees today!
When did you first study with Reed Business School?
I always wanted to be an accountant and the hotel I was working at the time had their main accountancy unit at the hotel. I asked them for a job, got a job there and thought, “Yeah, this is what I want to do”. Then I found a local accountancy firm who I trained with. I actually knew nothing about Reed at first, but that was where the firm I was with chose to send their students.
I became a student in 2002. I initially went to university, but for family reasons I left halfway through my final year. I understood at the time ICAEW had just opened up chartered accountancy to the vocational route, so you could do AAT and then apply for Chartered. I took a fast-track exam, then I only had to do about three of the Certificate stages and straight on to Advanced.
How did you find the experience of studying at Reed Business School?
Well, they're just amazing. It's an amazing place to go. It's an amazing place to study.
The lecturers are just phenomenal. They always have been. I had Jenny Winstanley, who’s still there. We had a catch up the other day!
I think you'll find that a lot of people that are sending their students now, probably trained there.
They looked after us so well as students, so now when we get the opportunity, we're sending all our learners to Reed Business School.
Did you study residentially?
I did. At the time I was living not too far from the college, but I did the residential anyway because you don't have to rush off and worry about driving in and out in traffic. Plus, you can do a bit of study in the evening. There's a pub in Little Compton and back in 2002 they had a pool table, which I think they still have, so the students would play each other in the evening.
What was the food like when you went there?
Amazing food - great Fish & Chip Friday! It's brilliant.
How did your career in accountancy take off? What was the next step after Reed?
Post-qualification, I worked for a corporate finance and audit specialist firm for two years. Crazy, but very, very good experience. Then I joined a larger firm, more local to me as a corporate finance manager, which I did three years.
By 2010, I had branched out and set up my own firm, but quickly realised I needed to be part of a team to be effective. It made sense to return to the firm I'd originally trained with and had 6 further amazing years there as a partner.
In 2016 I formed The Academy Partnership. I told myself, “Right, I've already done it before, I’ve learned more, my starting client base is bigger. This time I'm going to build a team.”
The firm started with an intention to train accountants, and I needed to sign up a student fairly quickly. It was lovely to get back in contact with the Business School. I hadn't really had much to do with them in the interim because at bigger firms you have dedicated partners that look after the training, but now I had to do it myself. It was a no brainer – my students were going to Reed!
What's the ethos and idea behind The Academy Partnership?
Larger firms typically operate by function, accounts, tax etc. When you're a smaller firm, you've got an opportunity to do things differently and think about how you can gain a competitive advantage over more established firms and win customers. We came up with an idea that it's not about the function, it's about the clients. Looking back, we had to operate differently as you do with limited resources.
Essentially everybody in the firm has to be able to do everything. Everyone has to do payroll, pension filings as well as being a client adviser, but as a result the team get a more holistic understanding of the client. That's how we differentiate ourselves. This is the difference between larger and smaller firms. As we have grown it gets harder to achieve but that remains our focus today.
As a small team we didn’t want to stop our students from developing so we decided that we would be patient and only grow when the team were ready – we have never employed above the long-term students. That's unique. It's a different way. And Reed Business School are fundamental for us because they're part of that.
And how many students have you sent to Reed Business School?
We have two who have successfully gone all the way through to become fully qualified with Reed Business School as our partner. In fact, one of them just attended one of Reed’s successful student dinners a few weeks ago which is a huge reward for both the student and the firm.
We have four current students. Our next team member due to qualify ACA, came to us as a school leaver just after lockdown and did the full 3 years of AAT. Interestingly the student has recorded the highest exam results we’ve ever had at the firm which up to that point had all been graduates. Our newest team member has just registered on the Level 7 apprenticeship in its current form. And then we've got three AAT students, two of whom who are with Reed because they've opened up the AAT route and we were able to transition them from local colleges.
Apprenticeships and training accountants are who we are, we call ourselves The Academy Partnership, it's in our DNA, and we can't do it without Reed Business School.
Do you think Reed Business School gives people the social aspect of the university experience without having the debt?
Definitely. As soon as Reed got in contact with us and said, “You know, we're doing AAT”, we were moving our students immediately for that reason. It's because we want them to be used to the college, we want them to be used to the discipline, and then when they go for their chartered education it's not brand new to them. And we want them mixing with other accountants, because, let's face it, we're the life and soul of the party. Always!
It's a social thing. You can build a relationship with your colleagues because you're going to go through your careers at the same age. And again, you never know when they might get in contact with you with a client. The more people that you've got helping you, the better for sure. You get that ability when you're physically there, especially on the residential, you get to know people much better. That's what makes it special.
We've got industry leading exam results. Why do you think that is?
I think it's definitely the tutors.
What Jenny Winstanley doesn't know about financial reporting surely isn't worth knowing!
She's probably, if not the best in the country, in the top two or three, because she’s been teaching that subject for 25 years. Plus, she's a qualified accountant, ex-PwC herself. She's phenomenal, but phenomenal at teaching you as well. These are really technical exams.
Would you recommend Reed Business School to other businesses? Why?
Well, for one, they’re extremely competent! And they actually do come to us if there's problems with the students and build that relationship with us. Nothing's missed. Nothing's forgotten. They’re on it.
There are not many places like Reed Business School. It has a special place in my heart.
I love everything about it over there. It's beautiful. The people are amazing. You get treated properly. You just go there, and you just feel comfortable. It's a very nice experience to be part of it as a student.