This week we spent some time speaking to our Founder, Gemma Shayle to hear more about a typical day for her at Advisory Gems and finding out a little more about the business.
Please describe what your role involves?
My role at Advisory Gems is to support and lead the finance and operational functions of our clients who are all small businesses in the software / technology industries. Our clients are typically SaaS and online marketplaces based within London.
We work with high growth businesses to ensure they have robust systems and processes across their business to scale effectively.
As Consultant Operations Director a lot of my time is spent accessing the business model of our clients, coming up with the appropriate solutions and implementing them across the company. This is normally done in close conjunction with the CEO/Founder of the business and their wider team as needed.
What kind of skills do you need to be effective in your role?
My role involves capturing a lot of (mainly) complex information and finding solutions to problems a business is facing today as well as predicting the issues they are likely to face as the company accelerates growth and ensuring the infrastructure is robust to meet these demands.
Therefore, problem solving, business intelligence, forecasting and process implementation are key skills required on a daily basis. As my role involves close collaboration with business owner’s communication skills are also vital as well as strong technical knowledge.
What are your favourite tools to assist you in your role?
Advisory Gems works completely in the ‘cloud’ making collaboration and accessing information as efficient as possible. Day to day as a team we rely on a number of cloud-based systems and tools which we often implement to meet our client’s needs. My favourite collaboration tool is Slack as it an easy way to aid quick communication.
How did Advisory Gems start?
I started Advisory Gems after the sale of an Online Marketplace I was working as Chief Operating Officer for back in 2014. I was suddenly approached by other tech companies who required a Finance and or Operations Director on a part time flexible basis. When I started working with these companies I could see an immediate need for this service and it went from there starting an outsourced Finance department solution.
How has the company developed it’s service offering?
Initially we were just providing a outsourced flexible finance function for clients, as demand has grown we then added the operational business support services to provide a fuller all round solution.
What do you love about your role?
I love the variation of the workload assisting through our client base as Finance and or Operations Director. Every day is different, interesting and there is always a problem to be solved! I consider myself very fortunate I get to work daily with impressive company Founders, their teams as well as managing our wonderful internal team here at Advisory Gems
What does the future hold?
We are always looking for interesting clients to work with to provide them with a finance and or operational function on a flexible basis. We also complete a wide range of one off projects such as system integrations, migrations and new business set up services. Automation and efficiencies is a large part of our offering as we continue to see technology advancements I see this becoming a larger part of our business support services