Introducing Philip White: CFO of The Adaptavist Group

Hi! Happy to be here. I'm Philip and I've been a CFO for nearly 20 years. Most recently, I was CFO of a publicly listed business and oversaw their Initial Public Offering (IPO). Prior to that, my experience has been across a number of global and professional services businesses, so this is my bread and butter, really! Outside of work, I spend a lot of time cycling in the great outdoors. I actually completed the Land's End to John o'Groats long-distance challenge a few months ago.

First and foremost, I love what I do. I really enjoy developing people and seeing them progress, so I'm fortunate to be in a position to put that into practice. It's important to me to share knowledge throughout my team and the wider business and to ensure that everyone is always upskilling. I apply that to myself too!

I'd like to think I'm a leader who anyone feels they can talk to, and one who finds the right balance between supporting people and giving them space to thrive. I think there are always multiple ways to do things, but the ownership of decisions and the output is more important to me than any particular approach someone might take.

The high-level goal is to develop a world-class finance function, providing a really high-quality service for the whole organisation. The team is already doing a great job, having had Lex [Archon] as Head of Finance until now, and I want to build on Lex's success and develop the team as much as I can. With the finance function expanding, Lex is moving into a new Head of Treasury role, so I'm pleased that we'll still be working closely together.

In people-centric terms, my goal is that everyone in the team grows and learns to the point that one day, someone else will emerge as the new CFO. That would make me really happy. I'm optimistic about it, too—I feel that I can see a clear path for us to propel the company forward.

Overall, I'd summarise it as being a powerful global team that's seen as the go-to digital transformation agent. We have so much technical insight, but it's more than that. We're in a unique position as a Group in that we bring together an enormous range of perspectives and knowledge from people who are experts in many different areas. We have both products and services to offer, all of which work together to unlock value. We really have the capacity to be an end-to-end provider for global organisations. 

Personally, I really want to dig into what our customers' journeys look like when working with us, and how everything comes together from a customer's point of view, so we can make it even better.

Our goal is to grow the topline—that's what most businesses want, of course. But I've seen a lot of organisations go through a rapid growth phase and then struggle to change gear for a more long-term mindset. We're planning for the future and making sure resource allocation aligns with our strategy. It's my job to keep us on track there!