Brad Haywood

Career History

I started my finance career alongside my studies at Northumbria University at a global engineering consultancy firm called WSP. Despite starting out in industry I was quickly driven down the practice route by my tutors given my degree in Accounting and Finance. Having joined RSM as a graduate, most of my career has been as an external auditor with the majority of time spent at PwC. There, I worked with a huge range of clients from SMEs through to some of the largest businesses in the North East.

While I loved the challenge of external audit, due to my other commitments at the time I decided to take up an exciting opportunity in industry as the Group Financial Controller of Hays Travel. This was an amazing experience where I learned more in 18 months than the rest of my career put together!

In 2025, I joined Clive Owen LLP as a Director with the aim of developing our consultancy offering which builds directly on my experience with both ERP and finance process implementation.

Qualifications

Ba Hons – Accounting

ACA Chartered Accountant

Experience and Expertise

I have spent lots of time working on improving processes and implementing technology changes for different businesses. It’s something I am passionate about and I believe that there are huge benefits to implementing automation particularly for SMEs where efficiency can be vital to their survival and growth.

I am also very commercially minded and enjoy getting under the skin of a business to identify key revenue and profit drivers to help you maximise results.

As part of our consulting offering, we have a broad range of services which includes financial modelling and forecasts, budgeting, ERP migration and implementation, finance process improvement and finance team training. We are technology focused and can recommend the best tools to help run your business.

As consultants, we can also attend your board meetings to help analyse, interpret and present critical financial information.

Professional Memberships

Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales (ACA)

Career Highlights

Implementing a full ERP transformation project during my time in industry alongside restructuring the finance team. While certainly a busy and challenging period it was rewarding to start seeing the benefits.

I am also hugely proud to have become a director at the age of 29 – I don’t think my younger self would have believed where my career has taken me!

Did you always want to be an accountant?

Definitely not – when I was younger, I wanted to play golf or cricket for a living – unfortunately a key requirement is talent which I wasn’t blessed with enough of!

Outside of sport, I have always been entrepreneurial and so I chose a degree that I felt would give me the skills to run a business. Somewhere along the way I started to really love what I do, and now I couldn’t see myself doing any other job.

Hobbies and Interests

In my spare time I love to both play and watch golf – thankfully my wife is very understanding of me spending 4-5 hours out of the house on a Saturday before watching my golfing idol, Rory McIlroy, in the evening!

We also have a cockapoo named Pepper (who I refer to as my first daughter) and we spend lots of time walking her on the fantastic beaches we have in the North East.