I live in Worcestershire with my partner, Anthony, and when not working you’ll most likely find us outside either in the garden or nearby in the village looking after our small flock of sheep!

I have recently moved into my role as head of shared services, which role involves leading Tarmac’s shared services team to ensure that our shared services centre (SSC) is operating as effectively as possible, adding value to all the SSC’s customers both internally and externally. The SSC sits at the heart of Tarmac’s finance function and covers a number of areas including cash collection, accounts payable, automation, finance transformation projects, logistics services and our record to report team. I look after six direct reports and a wider team of 140 people – it's been a brilliant opportunity.

We have a wide range of roles within our team, and a real focus on supporting and developing our people to ensure everyone is achieving their own ambitions and potential. All teams in the SSC work closely with the wider finance team and there are plenty of opportunities to learn more about the business through working closely with business unit finance teams. We also encourage everyone to take up opportunities of site visits to see first hand what our teams out on site are doing every day and to help understand the numbers and information that teams are then looking at within the SSC each day.

I joined Tarmac in 2016, having previously spent nine years with Grant Thornton in their audit team. I found Tarmac a really interesting business which was my original reason for applying, and then I found I really liked the team when I met them at my interview which helped me make my decision to accept the job! I originally joined as a manager in the reporting and consolidation team which is part of central finance within Tarmac. I was then given the opportunity to take on a slightly different role within the team – senior manager accounting advisory. This allowed me to take more of an overseeing role within the reporting team and a larger role in supporting the business with accounting judgements and making sure we were treating items correctly within our accounts.

I would definitely encourage someone thinking about applying to go for it! It’s a great business to work for – everyone is proud of what they do, and you really see that come to life when you visit sites, and the teams explain to you how things work and what’s happening. I have always felt supported and encouraged to ask questions – no matter how big or small.

Tarmac is passionate about people – whether that’s supporting team members to do further qualifications or one of the employee development programs that we run. We are proud of each other and celebrate our collective successes. For example, we hold a quarterly reward and recognition awards within the SSC where people can nominate team members who deserve a little extra recognition – for example where someone has made a great contribution to a project or made a really effective process improvement. It’s great to be able to recognize the contributions that are being made throughout our teams.