Professional experience
Hanna loves to dig into client problems and help them to solve any business niggles or issues before they turn into anything bigger.
Dedicated to the Newcastle and Hunter region, Hanna has spent over 10 years learning her craft and deep-diving into her clients’ businesses to ensure that she knows the business like it were her own.
Her specialist experience and knowledge are predominantly in the areas of management reporting and establishing processes and systems to support and optimise business operations.
Whilst working with her clients on strategic financial projects, establishing financial policies and procedures including implementing payroll systems, budget and forecast reporting, and overseeing their day-to-day financial and reporting needs, Hanna is her clients’ biggest cheerleader. She surrounds herself with clients that have skillsets that differ from hers which she finds creates inspiring conversations on both sides of the table and ensures different opinions and perspectives are considered when strategising.
Her number one learning in business is all about communication. Helping others understand the importance of good accounting and good business comes naturally to Hanna and leaves her clients with a level of comfort that they often haven’t had before as she turns a business’ numbers and insights into practical and manageable actions.
Hanna’s strong commitment to the Hunter region is evident through her community involvement and Board appointments.
Hanna was awarded Young Business Person of the Year by Newcastle Business Club in 2017.
Recent examples of work include:
- Helping business owners to grow their business acumen and financial expertise. A recent example includes assisting a business owner to build their decision-making abilities and business strategy to double their revenue in less than 2 years, expand to 3 sites and be on track to turnover $10M in sales by their 3rd year of trade.
- Transforming the systems and processes that underpin the operations of our busy clients. In one instance, the stability, consistency and transparency of the system enabled our client to reduce his work week to 4 days and guarantee him a mid-week round of golf and his weekends off. He now has a valuable business that he will sell and provide him the comfortable retirement that he and his wife have worked hard for.
- Providing proactive guidance and advice to a prize-winning local building company to ensure a strong ANTA position for their HOWI assessment (industry-specific requirements). This provided our client with confidence in his assessment and ability to grow his successful business. For those in the construction industry, this can be a real source of stress which (often due to a lack of planning) requires a personal contribution (i.e. putting their home on the line).
- Maintained and enhanced the internal finance function of a sophisticated local business for 3+ years before successfully transitioning the business into the safe hands of the new CFO. This included navigating complex HR and payroll matters, financial advice and guidance to the executive team and multi-layered cash flow modelling.
- Implement and establish the finance function of a local arm of a nationwide industry association with hundreds of members. Over the last 4 years, we have worked hard to enhance the finance function to simplify the audit process and improve the organisation’s ability to fund and support its industry – most recently via the detailed process of an hourly rate review and break-even analysis.
Qualifications and memberships
- Hunter Young Professional (hyp) – Member (Vice-President, 2014 – 2017)
- Renew Newcastle – Treasurer (2016 – 2018)
- The Business Centre – Workshop Presenter
