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This was never going to be an overnight thing but that’s what makes it so good. For me personally I’ve always had a drive and desire to progress whether that be with professional qualifications, personal skills, or job roles within the firm.

I joined Gascoynes on 15^th September 2004 as an apprentice. From the start it was very apparent that the company had a rich history of training people up for this level and nurturing them whilst they learnt the skills to blossom later on.

Move on a few years and I had passed my AAT exams and was working towards my ACCA qualification. My immediate manager left, which enabled me to take on more responsibility myself and was the real start of my transition to becoming a client manager.

In 2013 Barry Gascoyne retired from the firm passing everything over to Chris in what turned out to be the biggest catalyst in my career. This was something that Chris had wanted for some time and something that had been long agreed with Mr Gascoyne.

When Chris took over his ambition to grow the company was clear to see and I was sure to make it known I wanted to be included as much as possible. This was the start of what we now refer to as the leadership team as both Tom and Mark were also in a similar position.

Chris is very good at sharing the responsibility whilst being available for support and by doing this he instils confidence in others whilst enabling them to grow. This is something that can be seen throughout the firm and from the first day you start at Gascoynes. Whether it be the responsibility of putting out the rubbish on a Monday morning or going shopping for the juniors through to the management of clients, overlooking the training or the responsibility of recruiting staff Chris finds a way to help develop that level of responsibility in everyone. With the leadership team this was no different as Chris quickly identified our individual skills that could help the firm grow and set us on our way.

My love for accountancy stemmed from my passion for Business and the understanding of a business and as much as I enjoy working alongside businesses in my job role I also love the idea of running my own business and this is where I sought after an opportunity.

In 2013, Gascoynes began a huge period of growth with the first of 4 acquisitions across East Anglia seeing the firm grow in the number of clients we service as well as the number of staff on our team. The last seven years have also seen the roles within the ‘leadership team’ grow as well and a few Summer’s ago when discussing this with Chris we were all very keen on one thing – we wanted to be Directors.

Since then Mark and Tom have successfully earned their ACA qualifications and their practising certificate and for myself I have obtained my practising certificate through ACCA with my transition to ACA hopefully happening later this year.

For me it’s a life goal achieved and a very proud moment for myself and my family but more importantly it’s an opportunity I can’t wait to take on and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 5, 10, 15 years brings.

The future at Gascoynes is exciting, there are already a lot of exciting plans in the pipeline as well as a lot of ambition. This is definitely not the time to sit on the sofa and celebrate the successes of the past 15 years but instead use this as a springboard for the next part of the story.