Case study
Mark Hopley ACMA
Kate Elston ACMA
Brian Smith ACMA
Everest
Brian Smith ACMA
Strategic Business Manager
Mark Hopley ACMA
Finance Director
Kate Elston ACMA
Finance Manager
Case study
Everest
Ever est
Everest has come a long way
in its 44 year history. Since
it was formed, Hertfordshire
based Everest has enjoyed
sustained growth and
today the company has 900
employees, which includes
a finance department of 28
people. Everest continues
to be the brand leader in the
highly competitive home
improvement market and
has doubled its turnover in
the past decade. Everest is
recognised as a CIMA Training
Quality Partner through
the CIMA Training
accreditation scheme.
Our aim is not just to get
students through the syllabus
but to provide a really good
work-life-study balance.
Kate Elston ACMA
Finance Manager
Everest’s portfolio of products have
grown over the years and consists of
doors, fitted kitchens, conservatories,
energy efficient windows, and, more
recently, solar water heating. The firm’s
enterprising approach to business is
reflected in the way it trains and develops
its rising stars.
The company takes training and
development very seriously. When it
comes to finance, CIMA has always been
an integral part of the package it offers to
its trainee finance analysts. The firm was
one of the earlier members to join the
CIMA Training Quality Partner scheme and
at last year’s CIMA Financial Management
Awards, Everest’s training scheme
impressed the judges so much, that the
company received the award for Small to
Medium-Sized Employer of the Year.
For Everest’s finance director, Mark
Hopley, the award acknowledges the
company’s commitment to training and
retaining talent in a fiercely competitive
market place. ‘Winning the award gave
us great recognition for the hard work
that everyone puts into managing the
training and development of our people
and the imaginative approaches we
adopt to provide the right quality of
training,’ he says. Overall, the firm’s
outlook is summed up by Kate Elston, the
company’s finance manager. ‘It’s not just
accountants we’re creating,’ she says. ‘We
are developing future business leaders.’
Kate is responsible for managing the
company’s training scheme.
She acknowledges that as a mediumsized business, Everest has fewer financial
resources than larger organisations, but
as a result of this Everest have to be more
creative in being able to attract the best
of the best. Kate continues ‘If we want to
do that in a very competitive market, we
need to be able to sell the whole package
and that includes a top quality CIMA
training framework and a strong focus on
developing a range of experiences.’
The three year scheme provides a fully
funded support package which includes:
registration fees; tuition courses; revision
courses and exams all on company
time. Kate explains, ‘Our aim is not just
to get students through the syllabus
but to provide a really good worklife-study balance.’ Trainees are also
given the opportunity for nine month
rotations around four different areas of
the business. ‘Through these rotations,
the trainees are exposed to the whole
product lifecycle from marketing to sales,
through manufacturing to installation and
customer service, as well as traditional
management and financial accounting
functions.’
Most important of all, the package is
underpinned by strong support from
the top down. The company’s managing
director, Simon Jarman, finance director
Mark Hopley, strategic business manager
Brian Smith and finance manager Kate
Elston are all CIMA members.
This means the company has an
intrinsic insight into how it can best
support its training programme. ‘That’s
one of our key differentiators,’ says FD
Mark. ‘If you don’t have buy-in from the
managers, then it doesn’t matter what
resources or facilities you have, the
trainees aren’t going to get the support
they really need.’
The company also ensures that trainees
are given direct contact with senior
management from the outset.
Mark Hopley ACMA Finance Director
Brian Smith ACMA Strategic Business Manager
Kate Elston ACMA Finance Manager
‘That’s another differentiator,’ Mark
continues. ‘In a large organisation you
wouldn’t get that sort of exposure. The
direct access we provide gives trainees the
ability to talk with confidence to senior
people and those outside the finance
function.’ A pro-active approach to
learning is also encouraged. ‘Trainees
are given the green light to keep asking
example, members of the team take it
in turn to chair and present at internal
finance team meetings which helps them
try things out. If their style and approach
works, that’s great. If it doesn’t, they
learn from it and change things. This offers
an opportunity for them to fail in a safe
environment.’
‘In a large organisation you wouldn’t get that sort of exposure.
The direct access we provide gives trainees the ability to talk with
confidence to senior people and those outside the finance function’
questions until they’re satisfied with the
answer, and if something doesn’t look
right, they are encouraged to point it out
and empowered to resolve it.’
The focus on soft skills is also something
that distinguishes Everest from other
employers. Kate Elston explains, ’for
For general enquiries please
contact:
Chartered Institute of
Management Accountants
26 Chapter Street
London SW1P 4NP
T. +44 (0)20 8849 2251
E. [email protected]
The results of Everest’s efforts speak for
themselves: 100% pass rates, a highly
skilled professional workforce across
the business and most important of
all, high staff retention. ‘We’re always
looking for ways to improve training and
development but we think we can offer
a really great future for the trainees who
join our scheme,’ says Kate. ‘The finance
people here are seen as business partners
rather than number crunchers. There’s
lots of fluidity and we have seen CIMA
members in a variety of roles right across
the business.’ With such confidence in
its scheme, it’s clear that Everest is in an
ideal position to help its employees climb
to new heights of excellence.
The organisations’ strategic business
manager, Brian Smith, concludes, ‘being
a CIMA Training Quality Partner, we are
able to attract the right people into our
business, and offer them the support and
the opportunity to grow into great business
analysts of today with the potential to be
our business leaders of tomorrow. The
CIMA qualification has been the corner
stone of our finance training for over 12
years and continues to be as relevant today
as when it was first launched, providing
relevant real life skills for our people to
be able to contribute across our range
of functions, including marketing, sales,
manufacturing, operations and up to
board level.’