Practice Conference

Victoria is an experienced Chief People Officer with a proven track record in people leadership. Victoria began her HR career in 2000, later moving into professional services where she enjoyed 20 years with one of the UK’s leading accountancy firms holding the positions of HR & Development Director and Chief People Officer.

Victoria has an MA in International Business and Languages and is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD. She is an accredited Coach with experience of working with individuals in management and executive roles to enhance effectiveness, elevate individual wellness, and ultimately achieve greater professional and personal success. Victoria’s expertise lies in areas such as talent management, leadership development, enabling organisational and cultural change, and creating programmes that drive employee engagement.

Margaret Bradshaw founded Red Button Marketing Training in 2017 with a passion to help businesses get results from their marketing through effective marketing planning.   Having worked in accountancy for 20 years, which involved setting up and growing a marketing department in a regional firm, Margaret identified a gap in the market for clarity around what the marketing process looks like and how it can be visualised in such a way that people can see where to impact and make a difference.  Focused on helping to solve challenges in businesses around the role of marketing, Margaret, with the support of a team has developed award winning training and technology that seeks to solve those challenges and give owner managers a way to build and maintain a sustainable plan. 

With over 30 years’ experience from  a variety of market sectors, Margaret brings motivation, creative marketing ideas and most importantly results to the businesses she works with.  She loves nothing more than empowering people to establish effective marketing and business processes, develop a motivated team and most importantly, grow their business.  

Julia Penny is a Chartered Accountant, specialising in writing about and training auditing and financial reporting. She has over 25 years' of training experience, covering a wide variety of course types, from quick updates to in-depth workshops, and she is renowned for her lively course delivery.

In recent years, Julia has become a social media enthusiast, so do follow her updates on Twitter.

Julia is very involved with ICAEW activities, being a Council and Board member and sitting on the Ethics Advisory Committee. She also sits on the Audit and Assurance Board of the AAT, their equivalent to an audit committee.

Emily is our Technical Services Director responsible for the delivery of our training courses, file review services, technical manuals and consultancy services.  Emily is supported by our team of technical consultants across tax, audit and accounting.  Before joining Mercia in 2010, Emily was with KPMG for nine years working in both tax and audit.

Julie is a highly acclaimed keynote speaker and mentor. Her podcast channel ‘The Build and Exit’ has been hugely popular with 2k listeners in just over 4 months after she launched in 2023. She also did her first television interview at the end of July 23 for NTV talking about her journey of how she transitioned from working in corporate to becoming an acquisition entrepreneur.

 With over 12 years of experience in advising on growth, exit, and valuation, Julie has her own consulting firm (Wilkinson Accounting Solutions) which delivers financial expertise to a variety of companies from smaller SMEs to large corporate firms. Her mission is to ‘save the world from failed acquisitions’ and is passionate about helping other business owners build sustainable growth that will allow them to transition their business from a lifestyle to an asset.

Julie has successfully transitioned from working in corporate to now earning multiple recurring income streams from different methods, including business investments, property and high value metals. Julie also successfully completed her own acquisition in 2023 within her accounting practice and are in discussions on 3 more in 2024. Julie and her team have significant experience in exit planning and acquisitions as Wilkinson Accounting Solutions are working on up to 3-5 deals at any one time in the UK and worldwide.

Hannah Kirby-Suttie joined Wilmington plc in late 2021 as Head of Talent, Development and Engagement. Her portfolio includes learning & development, leadership development, wellbeing, employee listening and communications, as well as talent development and succession. Prior to joining Wilmington, Hannah spent more than 10 years as a learning and talent specialist in the construction and social housing sectors, having previously held commercially operational roles in sales, logistics and customer success. She drives strategic and transformative solutions, experiencing first-hand what it takes to consider and implement modernisation and change of an organisation’s people approach.

Lynn is Mercia’s Product Director and has responsibility for all of Mercia’s products and strategic relationships including with regulatory and governing bodies. Lynn is a Chartered Accountant and has spent the majority of her career in Accountancy Education and so she is uniquely placed to advise firms on technical learning programmes and strategies.