Daniel Stanway

• Identified and capitalised on growth opportunities in the market.
• Enforced compliance measures for adherence to industry standards, as well as insurance requirements.
• Optimised resource allocation to maximise productivity, recruited effectively and built a team that are effective in Finance.
• Drove process improvements, optimised workflow efficiency in several key departments I lead.
• Instituted cost control measures, mitigated financial risk.
• Senior leader and board-level contributor translating complex finance and operational matters into accessible strategic advice for non-specialist audiences.
• Leading the Finance, Procurement and ICT functions at strategic level, reporting to the board of governors on five committees.
• FD of the entire group, including three subsidiaries, two of which as a names director of the business, two as company secretary. (including main charity group).
• Oversee management of operational budgets totalling circa £25 million, consistently delivering financial stability and strategic resource allocation.
• Directed major external audits, achieving a reduction from 27 audit points to a handful of minor suggestions through transformational team development and system improvements.
• Lead financial planning and budget management for capital programmes exceeding £3 million, collaborating closely with estates and facilities teams to ensure strategic alignment.
• External point of contract to ESFA, local authorities and government funders.
• Spearheaded the implementation of new finance systems, delivering increased efficiency, transparency, and user satisfaction across the organisation.
• Lead major procurement projects including insurance, audit services, and corporate contracts, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards and achieving value-for-money outcomes.
• Act as Data Protection Officer (DPO), embedding GDPR compliance and robust data governance practices into organisational culture.
• Maintained oversight of all contractual compliance, safeguarding organisational interests and supporting high standards of operational integrity.

• Recruited high-achieving team members for enhanced department performance.
• Collaborated with the CEO and Board of Trustees to set and control annual budgets.
• Business partnered numerous budget holders from manager level up to Director level, with monthly meetings to discuss performance and strategy. Commonly variances about 10% on budget lines would need an immediate strategy implementation to reduce this in line with budget. By implementing this finance strategy, I was able to work collaboratively with the overspending department to address the budgetary challenges, improve financial discipline, and ensure the long-term financial sustainability of the department, in line with it's budget.
• Lead on all investment activities to make free reserves work harder in the bank.
• Championed cost saving exercises across numerous departments to best utilise income – new tender processes, value for money reviews of suppliers and re-contracting all energy, utilities and company mobiles. This resulted in a 3.4% expenditure saving across the board.
• Represented business in negotiations with external funders, including negotiation of fee levels for students.
• Trained all budget holders on our financial systems, budget reporting and cost analysis so that they had increase awareness of trends and YTD spend.
• Taken the level of free reserves from a single month to consistently over the three month policy level.
• Driven the College from ESFA Funding grade: Satisfactory, to achieve Good in 2021 and Outstanding in the current year 2023.
• Drive change of culture amongst management when utilising and discussing budgets - a key achievement was to set a culture of 'would you buy this yourself' amongst staff. When I joined the business, there was too much regard for needing something quickly, without properly understanding the best product sources and most cost effective solution. We changed order processes, and tightened quotation rules on more expensive purchases, resulting in a reduction of overall maintenance spend of 12% like for like.
• Provide accurate monthly management accounts on a timely basis to the Board of Trustees for both the Primary Charity and its subsidiary.
• Review of all Financial Schedules, including Accruals, Prepayments, Deferred Income, Accrued Income, for both the charity and the subsidiary.
• Record sector leading surplus year upon year.
• Management of ICT functions, and how the ILR submission reports links to a vast amount of education funding via ESFA.
• Leadership and guidance of all Enterprise ventures, including a farm and a working pub, open to the public, and operated as a training facility for people with learning difficulties. Working out GP for a menu, and ensuring this function makes a profit as a subsidiary every financial year.
• Attendance of all Board meetings, with a financial presentation of exceptional accuracy.

• Collaborated with the CEO on budget preparation to ensure alignment with company requirements.
• Delivered training and development to junior finance employees for progression and best practice improvements.
• Monitored and reviewed financial controls, processes and procedures to enable best practice development.
• Reduce levels of bad debt to below 1% from 4.3% within 12 months of taking the role.
• Management of a small finance team.

Due to relocation, this role was very similar to my previous role and the responsibilities, these included;

• Managing large scale client accounts up to £22m per month.
• Make payments on a portfolio of accounts worth up to £50m per month.
• Work as part of a large team for a top five business within its sector.

• Reconciled all company accounts, including credit cards and expenses.
• Reviewed general ledger entries and assessed accuracy.
• Interacted and built collaborative relationships with the wider departmental staff on all levels, working collaboratively to reduce University costs.
• Observed strict confidentiality policies to maintain data integrity.
• Communicated with suppliers to reconcile invoice payments.

• Processing of invoices for Purchase Ledger
• Generated invoices based on accounts receivable schedules and terms.
• Management of company credit cards.
• Ownership of all staff expenses, as well as the weekly payment runs.