Interview
Holly James, Gateley Legal Finance Controller, shares some insight into her role.
My role is Financial Controller of the Legal side of the business. The primary focus of the role is to record and deliver financial information to key stakeholders within the business. This includes delivering regular information on employee utilisation, fees and cash collections to unit heads and other members of the finance and management teams.
My day-to-day work is very varied. Much of the month involves supporting fee earners and budget holders within the business, this can be with tracking expenditure against budget, unit performance or dealing with accounts queries relating to billing. Following month end, my day-to-day role is focused more on collecting, processing and presenting the financial information from around the business. Here I focus on fees, cash and debtors to allow us to see and assess the performance of the business including the subsidiaries. This information is then presented to various parts of the business.
In my first year at Gateley, I was able to attend the company party, where the whole of Gateley came together to celebrate the performance and successes of the business. With a number of offices across the country, a lot of the time I am speaking to people over the phone or via email, being able to meet all the people you have worked with remotely was great and put the size of the business into perspective!