I absolutely love numbers. Maths was always my favourite subject and when studying Maths, English and History at A-level it was always my maths homework that I wanted to do first. There were ‘right’ answers and the ability to complete the exercises, in a way that didn’t apply to essays as they could always be tweaked.  However, throughout my accountancy training and as I started doing more financial analysis, I realised that the “but” was increasingly important. My “but” is that numbers out of context mean nothing – and what I actually  love doing is creating the context and drilling down into what the numbers are really saying (or hiding). …

Are you a “preparer”, “reactor” or a “reflector” when it comes to making decisions? I believe that people have natural preferences towards one (or two) of these states and by taking them into account, you can make better and more inclusive decisions.  Let us say you are discussing hybrid working with your senior management team. The ‘preparers’ want to know about the topic for discussion in advance and will spend a lot of time researching the options, preparing their thoughts and arguments and coming to the meeting with a clear idea of what their contribution will be. The ‘reactors’ come up with ideas based on what is said in the…

“It’s not fair” – a refrain that rings out across the world, generally from children lamenting the unfairness of not being given a treat, not being allowed to stay up late or not being allowed the same curfew as a friend. However fairness is a value that is somewhat contradictory by nature once you start digging down, as often what is fair for everyone actually isn’t fair for anyone.  There are some instances where ‘fairness’ is a clear cut scenario – e.g. two people doing the same job but one person being paid less to do this due to their gender, race, class, sexuality, etc. In these instances, we should…