Judges
NOMINATION CRITERIA
JUDGING IS RIGOROUS, FAIR AND HONEST.
Our highly experienced judging panel is represented by each of the partners and representatives from the region’s most influential bodies. Judges will score and pick the winners from the individual interviews.
Joint Head of Audit
BHP LLP
LEARN MORE
He joined BHP in 2020 following 14 years working at PwC across both Yorkshire and the Midlands. He has provided audit, accounting advisory and other assurance services to a number of renowned listed and privately-owned businesses across various sectors and has supported a number of his clients through high profile transactions including IPOs in the UK and the US. Since joining BHP his focus has been on the Leeds Corporate market where he has successfully grown both his team and his client base significantly.
Chris lives in York with his wife and two energetic (!) young boys. He is a big football fan and enjoys spending time coaching his local junior team.
Quote:
We’re absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to sponsor the Northern FD Awards and recognise some of the brightest and best talent across the North. Our region is home to some incredible businesses and the role that our CFOs & FDs have in driving that should never be under-estimated. We’re excited to be able to support the awards and celebrate what the North has to offer.
Rachel Smith
Experienced Finance Director
LEARN MORE
Qualifying as a chartered accountant with PwC, Rachel spent 15 years in finance roles in large complex organisations and for the past seven years has worked as a fractional Finance Director, providing strategic financial support and advice to Leeds SMEs across a range of industries.
Highly experienced Board level CFO and NED
LEARN MORE
Head of West & North Yorkshire
Barclays Corporate Banking
LEARN MORE
Saeeda Amin
Chartered Accountant
Former Chief Financial Officer, Fox’s Biscuits
LEARN MORE
Saeeda Amin has over 20 years’ experience holding senior executive roles, supporting both entrepreneurial owner-managed and listed businesses, primarily across the branded food sector. She is a Chartered Accountant with a background as a chief financial officer (CFO), corporate finance lead and transformation leader. Her skills have been gained through delivering turnarounds, business integrations, mergers and acquisitions, supporting manufacturing-footprint rationalisation, and building empowered and engaged teams. Saeeda has a strong strategy and change-management focus, ensuring delivery of results for all stakeholders. She recently led the sale of Fox’s Biscuits to the Ferrero Group during the COVID-19 lockdown, successfully delivering the target transaction price.
She is a passionate advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) inside and outside of the company’s walls, and is committed to building inclusive environments.
Saeeda is also a trustee of Penny Appeal, a charity whose aim is to relieve hunger poverty and water poverty, and provide access to education for orphaned children worldwide.
In her spare time, Saeeda is often seen at Anfield; a lifelong follower of Liverpool football club, she has been fortunate enough to have been at the Champions League final three times, and was overjoyed to witness Liverpool lifting the trophy in 2019.
Sandip Khroud
Partner
Hill Dickinson
LEARN MORE
Sandip advises on all aspects of corporate finance work. He acts for financial institutions, private equity houses, private companies, owner managed businesses and management teams in the acquisition and disposal of private companies, many of which are cross-border.
He regularly leads large legal teams on complex multifaceted deals for clients across a range of sectors including food, healthcare, engineering, business services and IT/Tech.
Partner
Hill Dickinson
LEARN MORE
Glenn has practised employment law for over 20 years and was previously National Head of Employment Law at a large regional law firm. He acts mainly for companies and senior executives. His experience covers all aspects of employment law including high value discrimination and whistleblowing complaints.
Glenn has significant experience of appearing in the Tribunals of England, Scotland and Wales. As well as being an experienced Employment Tribunal advocate, he also advises on a wide range of employment law matters, including:
The enforcement and defence of restrictive covenants
Senior level appointments and exits
Outsourcing
Large scale reorganisations and redundancy.
He has extensive experience of advising in transactional matters and has a particular expertise in TUPE acting for both buyers and sellers (and those involved in service provision changes) on all legal and practical matters.
He has acted for both employers and employees on claims for breach of contract, unfair and constructive dismissal, all aspects of discrimination matters, equal pay, whistleblowing and unlawful deduction from wages claims. He is regarded as a holiday pay expert and also advises on industrial relations matters.
He has led teams that have won multiple awards and is well known for his straight-talking practical advice.
Glenn has a wide-ranging employment practice with clients from a variety of sectors using him for their employment law needs. He receives work from a wide variety of sources including accountancy firms, other law firms, and an extensive network.
He has advised on a number of large scale Settlement Agreement projects and has extensive experience of running these.
Client experience includes providing support to a number of large and small businesses in a variety of different fields. He acts for a number or high profile and well-known household names such as the Capita Group plc, Diligenta, and Begbies Traynor plc.
Glenn is recognised for his technical expertise in specialist areas such as holiday pay and overtime, assessing employment status and providing tactical and strategic support to businesses to assess and minimise risk.
Glenn is a regular presenter at seminars and training events and is invited to speak at large scale conferences. He has been the judge at a number of Mock Tribunal events arranged for clients and has presented seminars for third parties and clients/contacts.
Glenn studied law at the University of Newcastle graduating in 1999 with a 2:1 degree.
He then passed the Legal Practice Course at Northumbria Law School graduating with a distinction.
Highly experienced CFO/NED and Investor
LEARN MORE
Alastair Mitchell
Highly experienced CFO
LEARN MORE
His varied experience has included global multinationals, large international businesses, as well and listed UK businesses and private equity backed companies all of which had ambitious plans to achieve high performance and growth.
He trained and worked as a Chartered Accountant with EY in London before moving to PepsiCo, initially as an International Internal Audit Manager. He then moved with his family to Hong Kong and then Budapest to assume a number of Regional Financial Controller and CFO roles in their soft drinks business. After nearly a decade overseas Alastair returned to the UK as CFO and then Managing Director of Georgica PLC a leisure and hospitality business listed on AIM. His experience there included building a new finance function in Milton Keynes, implementing new finance systems, fundraising, acquisitions, disposals and bank refinancing. Subsequent experience included 9 years as CFO of Sage UK and Ireland with further M&A experience as well as leading business transformation and rationalisation projects.
Alastair is also Treasurer and Trustee of the PROPs charity in Newcastle which supports the carers and families of people experiencing drug and alcohol problems.
Alastair lives with his family in Newcastle upon Tyne and commutes weekly to West Yorkshire.
Partner
Michael Page
LEARN MORE
John Halton is a partner within the Page Executive CFO practice and over his 15 years with the group, he has successfully supported a broad range of companies, across all industries, Michael Page in their search for senior finance professionals.
Originally planning to pursue a career in academia, gaining his Master’s Degree from Leeds University, John changed direction and after a successful career in sales and account management with an owner managed business, started his career with Page in the Sheffield office in 2008, successfully leading that business through the economic downturn.
Since then, he has managed Page Group operations across the North West and Midlands with his remit for the past seven years being entirely dedicated to executive finance recruitment in the North of England – specifically leading hires in to PE/VC-backed companies.
John is a keen football fan, watching and still trying to play, and has also been an enthusiastic amateur stand-up comedian.
Chris L’Aime
Head of CFO
Page Executive
LEARN MORE
Martin Athey
Translink Transaction
Services Partner
LEARN MORE
diligence. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 25 years’
experience working in accountancy practices and has specialised in the
transactional field since 2006 working on over 150 deals to date.
Prior to joining BHP/Translink, he spent 13 years at a “Top 10” accountancy
firm, leadings its Yorkshire and North East due diligence team.
Martin has wide ranging transactional experience on UK and cross-border
acquisitions, fund raisings, disposals and public flotations for clients such as
owner managed businesses, large corporates, PLCs and financial institutions.
Hamish Morrison
Joint CEO of BHP LLP
and Translink Corporate Finance Partner
LEARN MORE
across numerous sectors including TMT, Logistics, Manufacturing and
Business Services.
He advises owner-managers, corporate and private equity clients, with a
particular focus on M&A strategy and execution.
Hamish has significant domestic and cross-border sell side experience
and with over 27 years’ of corporate finance experience, he has a
reputation for delivering results for this clients whilst providing them with
great strategic insight and innovative solutions to problems.