Meet The MD: Theta Financial Reporting managing director Chris Biggs on helping colleagues to “grow and stretch their ‘professional wings’”

Business leader Chris Biggs has had experience within the accounting and financial services industry on both sides of the Atlantic.

Through his experiences at some of the world’s largest financial firms, Chris identified a need for a ‘disruptive alternative’ - and so Theta Financial Reporting was born.

Chris took the time to chat to Bdaily about how Theta began, what motivates him about running the business and what the future holds.

Can you tell the readers about yourself first of all - i.e. your background, where you are from etc?

“I’m from Birmingham but moved to London shortly after qualifying and spent a couple of years in Washington DC. I trained in Birmingham with KPMG auditing manufacturing clients and then specialised in their financial sector in London.

“I then worked in Washington DC for the World Bank Group for two years, applying IFRS and US GAAP to their project entities and then moved to PwC when I came back to the UK.

“At PwC I was a director in the accounting advisory group advising both financial and non-financial sector clients on general GAAP, financial instruments, structured finance and asset finance.

When was Theta set up, and how has it grown since then?

“Theta was set up in 2016 as a disruptive alternative to big firms – we provide the same skill and experience but in a far more agile and hands-on manner at a far better value point.

“We are now into our fifth year and offer accounting advisory, consulting and resource solutions for our clients. We’ve had incredible growth and our team currently numbers 12 and we are continuing to recruit.

“We have been engaged by clients including FTSE100 leading retailers and global household-name private companies.”

**What does your role entail? **

“My role is split between overall firm strategy, developing opportunities and relationships and making sure we have the right talent who can personally grow with us. We currently have a very talented ex-Big 4 team.

“I love employing people with an entrepreneurial spirit which comes through in how we approach business development, client challenges and offering the market something disruptively new.”

What is it about your organisation that motivates and excites you the most?

“I hugely enjoy helping clients resolve issues, adding value to them and doing things differently in the market.

“I also enjoy finding the right talent to join our firm and watching them grow and stretch their ‘professional wings’ which have often been somewhat ‘clipped’ in their prior roles.”

What have been your biggest challenges during your time at Theta so far, and how have you overcome them?

“The greatest challenge has been finding the talented entrepreneurial people to come and join our team.

“They need the right experience but importantly have to be of the mindset that we can do things differently and increase the value we can add to clients.

“Patience is the key in holding out until you find the right person rather than jumping for an available resource.”

What does the future hold for your company? Any exciting projects in the pipeline we should know about?

“Like all professional services firms the current environment is difficult, however we have a very clear strategy of growth and are continuing to hire great people and engage with ever more clients who would have previously gone with the Big 4.

“As a sign of our growing strength in the market, we are currently launching a dedicated ‘Systems Implementation’ capability to support clients across a range of transformations and ERP changes.

“I’m very excited by how we are continuing to grow and widen the services we provide to our clients.”

Want to be part of our Meet the MD series? Email jane.imrie@bdaily.co.uk to pitch your North East, Yorkshire or London-based business.