Meet the Authors
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The online courses are written by leading experts in their field. Their vast experience and expertise has been recognised by AIA, as well as many accounting and other industry bodies, so you can be confident that their courses provide you with industry leading CPD.
David Allen
Drayton Bird
Anna Faherty
Peter Howson
John Mardle
David Molyneaux
Brian Plowman
John Taylor
Robin Tidd
Juan Carlos Venegas
Stuart Warner
Lisa Weaver
DAVID ALLEN
David Allen is a past president of CIMA and a past chairman of the Management Accounting Committee of the International Federation of Accountants. He was employed for many years by Cadbury Schweppes group holding directorships with various subsidiary companies. Whilst with the group, he coined the expression Strategic Financial Management to refer to an approach which enabled the finance function to play a proactive role in the formation and monitoring of strategy, and offered an antidote to short-termism.
COURSES
Risk Management
Looks at the context in which the concept of risk management has developed, the sort of infrastructure and processes it requires, and the impact it has on traditional control systems.
Strategic Financial Management
Combines financial and strategic management and provides the financial criteria for all management decision making, maximising the net present value of projected cash flows and focusing in particular on the two key ingredients: cash flow and net present value.
Dynamic Budgetary Control
Looks at how to analyse the long term impacts of budgeting decisions rather focus on their short term impact., thus enhancing the long term value of your business.
Financial Management in Turbulent Times
Looks at the most critical areas of volatility for financial managers from the role of finance in organisations, the clarification of objectives, to investment appraisal and the control of working capital.
Managerial Megatrends and Financial Control
Takes you through the predominant changes in the business environment in this time of constant change with a view to helping you and your company thrive through them.
DRAYTON BIRD
Drayton Bird has long been one of direct marketing’s best known teachers and authorities. He has spoken and trained in 43 countries and worked with a number of the world’s best known brands. He was named by the CIM as "one of 50 living individuals, worldwide, who have shaped modern marketing.”
COURSES
Promoting Your Professional Practice
This course shows how marketing, done properly, is an investment and not an expense, allowing you to see what you get for your money and enabling you to achieve maximum results for your efforts.
ANNA FAHERTY
Anna Faherty is a writer, lecturer and consultant working across the publishing, museum and charity sectors. She has hands-on management experience as director of a multi-million pound publishing division and is currently on the board of a small independent museum.
COURSES
Communicating Complex Ideas
Allows accounting and finance professionals to analyse the needs of their audience, choose the appropriate form of delivery, plan and design an effective communication and evaluate its effectiveness.
Innovation for Accountants
This course shows you why innovation is important, how to create and select great ideas and how to realise them in your own organisation.
Professionalism and Ethics for Accountants
In this course you'll discover the challenges and rewards of behaving ethically in the workplace, consider your own moral values and explore perspectives that will challenge your views.
Social Media for Accountants
If you’ve ever wanted to exploit the power of social media but didn’t know where to start, this course is for you. You’ll consider how social media can help you achieve your own professional goals, explore some of the most common social media platforms and discover how other organisations and individuals use social media in a professional context.
Thinking Strategically for Accountants
Designed for accounting and finance professionals who want to develop their strategic thinking skills. The course enables learners to deal with uncertainty, question the status quo and use a combination of creative and analytical skills.
PETER HOWSON
Peter Howson is a director of AMR International, London’s leading independent provider of commercial due diligence. He has worked on over 200 due diligence assignments. He has over 25 years of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and business development experience gained both in industry and as an advisor. Peter has a degree in Economics, is a CIMA qualified accountant and holds an MBA from Manchester Business School. He has written three M&A and due diligence related books.
COURSES
Buying a Business
A guide to the processes behind buying a business covering the initial decision to purchase to the final integration of the business with your own.
Due Diligence in Mergers and Acquisitions
Due diligence is a process which should add value to new acquisitions and yet it is often a tool which is misunderstood and misused. This course takes you through the steps of using implementing due diligence to the benefit of your business.
Market Analysis for Accountants
This course is about creating a robust framework for carrying out market analysis. It is a mixture of business strategy, marketing analysis and market research.
Selling a Business
This practical course takes you through the steps of selling your business from compiling information to interest buyers to the completion of a sale.
JOHN MARDLE
John is managing director and owner of Pharos Informatics Ltd, a company formed in 2001 to formulate the seamless integration of human resources and process systems in companies undergoing significant transformational change in the area of Working Capital. Pharos is a partner of Develin and Partners - whose managing director is Brian Plowman, also an author - and develops the strands that ensure successful implementation and execution of a given strategy.
Prior to this John was Finance Director of Parsons Group International and part of ABB’s executive management team where he supported the transition phases required of acquired companies to become compliant with ABB’s ethos and culture as it built to be the largest engineering company in the world.
COURSES
Working Capital Optimisation and Cash Management
This course looks at how Working Capital Optimisation and Cash Flow Management works through supply and reverse supply chains, inventory, and demand chain transformation.
DAVID MOLYNEAUX (1951-2009)
David Molyneaux completed a PhD on ethical issues and their management and subsequently worked with the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland and with the Judicial Studies Committee to raise awareness of the challenges of professional ethics.
COURSES
Ethical Issues for Accountants
Increase your understanding of ethical issues by exploring 28 true-to-life examples of dilemmas faced by accountants today.
BRIAN PLOWMAN
Brian Plowman is a founding partner and managing director of Develin and Partners, a UK based management consultancy firm. He has 30 years’ consulting experience and has specialised in the development of methods for Activity Based Management and Business Process Management. He is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered Management Consultant, a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consulting and author of several books in his specialist fields.
COURSES
Activity Based Management
Provides managers with the key information they require to make key decisions that boost business performance.
JOHN TAYLOR
John is a Chartered Accountant who spent many years advising small and medium sized businesses across the North of England. He was previously a Financial Director of a company in Leeds and is currently a lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University, teaching Forensic Accounting at Masters Level.
COURSES
Forensic Accounting
This course gives you an overview of the work involved in Forensic Accounting, looking at all the areas a forensic accountants' day to day work might involve. This includes fraud investigations, damages assessments, valuations of businesses or curious entities and legal proceedings.
ROBIN TIDD
Robin Tidd, MBA, FCMA, MCIM, is an experienced management consultant. He has developed significant knowledge over the past 27 years working with organisations, and driving their success via a down-to-earth, practical approach. He was Chair of CIMA Members in Practice 2000-2005 and is a member of CIMA’s council.
COURSES
The Road to Continuous Improvement
Take an in-depth look at the concept of Continuous Improvement and the problems and roadblocks you are likely when you strive for it, and get ideas about how you can overcome them.
Business Performance Management
Helps you to understand what sort of plans should come out of the strategy process as well as how to advise clients on establishing control systems to achieve business plans and establish the best ongoing review process.
Key Performance Indicators
Looks at how to use KPIs to convey results which show the degree to which main bottom line objectives are being met; to provide incisive knowledge allowing corrective action to be devised thereby facilitating results; and to motivate people so that they are proactive and innovative in improving, not just operating, a process.
Managing Through a Recession
Enables you to think through your approach to managing a business through a recession. Working through the process of understanding what is going on, assessing the damage, planning under pressure and making it happen, you will develop your approach and engage in a dialogue with you peers in this peer-enriched learning course.
JUAN CARLOS VENEGAS
Juan Carlos Venegas is an accountant, certified forensic consultant, fraud examiner and counter fraud specialist and the founder and owner of Fiscal Accounts, an Accountancy practice based in the UK. He has been in practice for eight years and is a member of several institutions including the Institute of Certified Practising Accountants, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the Fraud Advisory Panel, the Institute of Counter Fraud Specialists, the Institute of Certified Management Accountants and the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators. He is also a course writer and a tutor for Oxford College.
COURSES
Becoming an Expert Witness
This course defines what an expert witness is, what their duties are and helps you to be able to testify and defend your report and opinion.
STUART WARNER
Stuart Warner BSc (Hons), ACA, NLP Practitioner, has almost two decades of experience in finance. He has spent a large proportion of this time training people for recognised professional qualifications and offering related development training to management and staff at all levels. Stuart is currently a Director of Financial Fluency Ltd, where he works directly with clients to deliver a range of business and finance focused training solutions for trainee accountants, qualified accountants and non-finance professionals. He also advises the board of one the UK’s top Accounting Institutes.
COURSES
Making Budgeting Work in the Real World
Despite the clear advantages of budgeting and the unquestionable need for proper planning - the process is fraught with hurdles and well documented problems. This course examines the 'game' of budgeting how some simple tweaks and changes can make a real difference.
LISA WEAVER
Lisa Weaver is a professionally qualified lecturer with 15 years experience of exam-based, and CPD lecturing for accounting and finance professionals. Lisa qualified with Deloittes, and spent four years in audit practice, with clients ranging from major charities, multi-national organisations and listed companies to football clubs.
Since leaving audit practice, Lisa has lectured on financial reporting, audit and governance subjects, developing and delivering CPD courses for qualified accountants working in industry and in practice. Her clients have included KPMG, PWC, National Grid, British Energy, and Orange. Lisa has delivered courses across Europe, the Caribbean, China and South East Asia.
COURSES
Corporate Governance
Using real world examples and case studies this course blends theoretical underpinnings with practical advice on creating efficient and effective management structures that minimise risk.
Managing your Transition to IFRS
Learn everything you need to know about the new standards, the benefits and the implications of using them, and how to make the transition a smooth one.
