Every company has periods where key staff become unavailable, be it for sickness, maternity or paternity leave, or because they are on holiday. The need for quality resource to staff finance projects can also be a challenge.

This is why temp agencies flourish. As well as offering temporary workers, Hutcheon Mearns has an additional innovative solution when it comes to helping clients overcome staff shortages. 

Three years ago, Katie Keay was finance team lead of a Norwegian oil and gas company when a member of the finance team left to become a specialist at Hutcheon Mearns. 


“That was the first I knew of Hutcheon Mearns. As I learned more, I realised it was a unique business, that employs a team of practice trained and industry experienced accountants, known as specialists, who are then available to clients to undertake finance projects and fill unexpected skills gaps.

“I thought the fact that we could access a skilled resource on a project basis was very appealing. So much so that we contracted with them for a specialist to support our year end preparation. This enabled us to focus on other critical finance areas. The experience of the individual and the quality of the project delivery was unlike any other interim options we had used before,” Keay recalls. 

When Keay left her role in industry, she took some time off with her family when she noticed that Hutcheon Mearns was advertising a role as head of the firm’s interim specialists team. 

“From my own experience, I had seen the benefit of the apecialist offering in practice and could see that there is a real demand for the quality of interim personnel that Hutcheon Mearns was offering. While Hutcheon Mearns does also offer temporary workers, the fact that they also offer specialists gives clients a variety of solutions to a resource problem and lets the client determine what is best for them.

"While temporary workers can be a great option there are often challenges finding someone who has the right experience or who is willing to take on a short-term project due to the risk for them of not working.  The specialist offering overcomes those options by providing our staff to support,” Keay explains.

She was immediately attracted by the role and joined Hutcheon Mearns. “One of the immediate benefits was the huge increase in the variety and types of challenges I was dealing with. With the oil company, I was very much a hands-on accountant, doing the monthly and quarterly accounting cycles. With my current position, every day is different,” she comments.

“This is a very ambitious company. We’re headquartered in Aberdeen and have offices in Dundee and Edinburgh.  We are also about to launch a Glasgow office,” Keay adds. “We are always looking for new opportunities and that is very exciting.”

Keay manages the client relationships for the interim specialists team which is one of the things she enjoys most. "We often find that our clients book the same specialist again as once they have used them once, they have a lot of knowledge and this can be utilised for future projects – this is again another unique aspect of the specialist team. 

"We are fortunate to have an exceptional specialist team who range from newly qualified accountants to experienced finance directors. We have found that our business model is also well suited to people with great experience but who want more flexibility e.g. term time or part-time working. As our work is project driven, we are happy to support this type of flexible working so our team can give their client their all during the day but have a work-life balance that works for them.

“We are also unique in that we are part of a wider business and our specialist team can access the skills of other teams to support our clients. The deals team can support with corporate development, acquisitions, disposals and transaction services. The resourcing team can recruit permanent replacements for key staff and we often work directly with them to fill a skills gap while a permanent recruit is identified.”

The firm also has an insights team who can automate financial processes or create Power BI dashboards for companies to reduce the manual workload and allow the finance team to focus on adding value.

“Having seen the benefits of a specialist first hand I feel really well placed to explain the unique benefits of this offering to others,” Keay concludes. 

www.hutcheonmearns.co.uk