However, especially in difficult times, they can find their discomfort with finance and what their accountants are presenting to them a source of worry rather than information to act on.  Jo   provides a crystal clear and no-nonsense guide to banish that discomfort and to enable participants ask the questions that get the revealing answers…..  

 Kyran Fitzgerald interviews Jo Haigh

A bestselling author of business books, Ambassador for a middle sized North of England Town (Huddersfield), part time academic, partner in a leading corporate advice firm, MGR, and non executive director to five companies, Jo Haigh has amassed an impressive portfolio of business activities while finding time to raise four children with her businessman husband.

She will be in Dublin shortly to run a workshop for Vistage Ireland members and guests on Finance for Non-Accountants.

Jo is Yorkshire through and through.

Born in Huddersfield, a Yorkshire mill town around the same size as Cork, her parents both ran small businesses. Her father made children’s’ clothes. Her mother worked as a sheet metal engineer – she died when Jo was sixteen.

“Everyone says that I’m very much like her .. a bit feisty. Her death was a seminal moment.”  

Later, her father became a casualty of Britain’s infamous ‘three day week’, a period when the country’s economy went into a virtual lock down following the Yom Kippur War in late 1973/early 1974. “We ended up living in rental accommodation. It turned me into a survivor. I was determined to be absolutely self sufficient.”

Jo trained initially as a lawyer. “Finding that the law was not boring enough, I went into accountancy, instead”, she jokes.

Her first proper job was as company secretary and financial controller in a food and wine importing business. The firm also owned several restaurants.

“Eventually, I was made finance director at the age of twenty six. We became very acquisitive, we bought and sold. We did an MBO (management buyout). Eventually, the business was sold to Cannon Street Investments and floated on the stock market.”

By then Jo had four children. She felt herself being pulled in various directions.

She felt guilty if she was away from work attending a school event, and guilty if she was at work, missing such an event. And the solution? Start her own business, which Jo duly did – at the age of twenty nine.

“We rented out finance directors to people (firms) with particular needs.”

As it was a service business, she did not have to rely too heavily on the banks for financial support.

“I worked from home. I was very hot on debt collection. The first person I employed was a marketer. It was the best thing that I ever did. One can be too busy delivering to find time to look for the next job. At the time, it was a much less fashionable thing to do.”

Haigh also believes strongly that people should not undervalue themselves.

“I have always charged the appropriate industry rates. I have never been cheap and cheerful.”  

Jo sold the business and went to work for the accounting firm, BDO Stoy Hayward, helping to set up their corporate finance practice in the north of England.

Tips for business success:

Over the years, Jo has developed strong views about the sort of people she likes to work for, or with, in the world of corporate finance: “I have only wanted to work with people who have a clear vision of where they want to go. I never wanted to work with ‘ lifestyle’ companies. My skill set is in the strategic development and disposal of businesses.”

Over the years, Haigh has developed considerable expertise both in the craft of corporate finance and the arts of promotion and publicity.

She has become a bestselling author with titles under her belt including:

“The Business Rules 100 pitfalls that business should be aware of “Buying & Selling a Business” an entrepreneurs guide. and “Her book, “Tales of the Glass Ceiling: A Survival Guide for Women in Business” achieved sales of more than 500,000 in 2008.

“My last work was based on interviews with more than a hundred businesswomen, some of them in senior positions, some in the professions and some running their own businesses. The book is about hearing people tell their stories.”   

So what did she learn from the experience?

“I was very pleased to hear that ninety nine in a hundred of those interviewed hated ‘networking’ events. I have always hated them. The other thing I learned is that a lot of them had experienced prejudice at the hands of other women in senior positions.”

“The more mature women were a bit more pragmatic, more forgiving, accepting, better able to laugh things off.”

Vistage involvement:

Jo has been a member of Vistage for the past five years, and a regular presenter at Vistage meetings over the past eight years.

“I would not regard it (membership  at Vistage events) as networking in the traditional sense. It is about education. I have made lots of contacts – this is a side benefit.”

“I have been exposed to all sort of educational topics. The afternoon session is like a mini board meeting.” 

There is a strong sense of mutual obligation. “If you do not commit to it, you are letting the other board members down.”

Jo notes that in her group “Fifty per cent of the executive sessions are given over to personal matters. We have had people discuss their marital lives – and a lot more besides.”

“For CEOs, MDs, majority shareholders, it provides an outlet, an arena for debate. The people involved are not in competing businesses. My own group in Yorkshire includes people running a textile firm, a marquee provider, a crèche as well as a headmistress and a solicitor.”

“Our group, with a membership of sixteen is full. Any bigger and it would not have the camaraderie..”

These days, there are no shortages of problems to be discussed: falling sales, redundancies, a lack of bank finance. The impact can be seen on peoples’ personal relationships. It can be lonely at the top.

Coping in a Great Recession:

Jo specialises in providing strategic advice to people interested in developing, or disposing businesses. 

How has the recession impacted on the way she conducts her business?

“I t depends on whether one is buying or selling”. Without being glib, her view is that the downtimes clearly throw up opportunities as well as serious, even grave challenges.

Her advice to business people, in these times, is pretty down to earth :

“You have to control the cash. Don’t gamble. Be flexible.”

“Be flexible. My own business is flexible. When I am not doing M & A (merger and acquisitions) work, I help people to do ‘pre packs’, helping people to liquidate their debts, protecting personal assets.”

In these times, it is best to be patient: “It takes longer to do a deal, nine to twelve instead of six months.” Jo agrees that right now, there is good parallel with the time taken to sell a house in what is a fairly slow market.

As for the prospects of recovery?

“”I am a naturally optimistic person, but I am a realist. The banks will take a fair time to recover. The recovery will be slow. We are in for a less prosperous time.”     

Jo appears to be in a happy space when it comes to her own life.

“I am fifty this year. I have decided to enjoy the journey. My youngest is in her third year at university. I am going to stop continually striving and to enjoy what I am doing more.”

Jo’s husband, Mike Rosser was MD of the Ad Agency,. Walter Thompson.

Fourteen years older than Jo, he has blazed a trail into an active ‘retirement’ with five non executive directorships under his belt.

But Jo has no plans to tune out.

“It is great fun getting paid for doing what I love. I’m a bit of a workaholic.”

“It is important to remain positive without being unrealistic. One of my daughters is called Pollyanna ..she has always been the most positive, optimistic person, she has us in stitches and asks the questions we all want to ask but don’t dare.”

No better antidote when it comes to banishing those demons of depression..