David Crowe | Director – Accounts & Advisory
My Menzies journey so far: No two days are the same.
I’m now a Director in the Menzies Accounts & Advisory team but my personal accountancy journey began at Menzies when I joined as an AAT Apprentice in the Outsourcing team.
What’s your Menzies story?
My on-the-job experience in the Outsourcing team was mainly of day-to-day bookkeeping and management accounting and this laid the foundations of my career and supplemented my AAT studies at the time.
There are lots of opportunities within Menzies to change roles, to follow interests and support progression and having completed AAT, I moved across offices and service lines to train as a Chartered Accountant within Menzies’ Accounts & Audit team.
My roles in both teams gave me a valuable insight into clients of all different shapes and sizes and allowed me to visit and meet lots of different people and businesses.
What makes your Menzies story unique?
I’m what people may refer to as a “boomerang” as I temporarily pursued a career away from Menzies to try working in industry on the “other side of the fence” and, whilst this provided good experience of seeing things from a client’s perspective, I personally found the work I was doing could quickly became routine and mundane.
I was presented an opportunity to came back to Menzies to join the Accounts and Advisory team as an Assistant Manager and to take on my own portfolio. I’m so glad that I did and, reinforcing the progression opportunities at Menzies, I was able to draw from all my experience gained across outsourcing, accounts and audit to progress and be promoted and lead the client portfolio I do today.
What do you love about working at Menzies?
Ask anyone at the Firm, “Why Menzies?” and I guarantee that “the people” will be one the first things that they list. We are a fun and diverse group and, outside of our day-to-day collaborations, also have many opportunities throughout the year to meet up and socialise together. As a Training Manager, it’s also rewarding to be able to help the next generation progress their own accountancy careers.
We have a great culture and our ‘Better Place to Work’ initiative has seen the introduction of agile, flexible working arrangements that support our health and wellbeing and really help on a personal level – especially with two young children to take care of!
Each year, we have our “Make a Difference Week” where we are given a day to take away from the office and give back to the local community – a fond memory I have was recently volunteering and fundraising for the Shooting Stars Hospice whilst dressed in a giant inflatable chicken costume!
I love the work I do at Menzies, working with a range of clients and people brings day-to-day variety and means that no two days are ever really the same.