Getting to know… Chris Hird

In the latest instalment of Bdaily’s Getting to know... feature, which looks at the person behind the business profile, Chris Hird, corporate finance and transactions director at accountancy and advisory firm S&W, talks about his farming roots, finding his way into corporate finance, helping business owners through the emotional side of selling a business and how he still finds time to help out during the lambing season...

We know you as the corporate finance and transactions director at S&W, but who is the person behind the title? Tell us a little about what makes you tick…

Growing up, I wanted to be a farmer. I’m from a farming family and went to Newcastle University to study agriculture. 

In my final year, the foot-and-mouth outbreak struck, and when I graduated, agriculture was still in the doldrums.

I’d done a business management module in my degree, though, and by chance my father saw a job advert in the Farmers Guardian from a firm in rural Cheshire. 

They wanted to train people with agricultural experience in accountancy. 

I don’t think there were many applicants who knew about farms, because they offered me the job on the spot.

Did you always want to work in corporate finance?

I'd love to say there was a plan and a grand strategy, but as a young man, I didn't know what I wanted to do in the profession. 

After I qualified in 2007, I did various audit, tax and insolvency work before I came across an advert for a role in corporate finance, which I hadn't done since my qualifying exams. I applied almost on a whim and got it.

Later, in 2017, I moved to Haines Watts for a role that was supposed to be split between general practise and corporate finance.

Within a day of getting there, however, the chap whose general practise portfolio I was meant to pick up decided he wasn't going to retire after all, and the guy doing corporate finance left.

What’s the best bit about your job?

In corporate finance, every day is different. We have a plan on Monday. Then the phone rings, and the plan changes. 

It's very fluid, and you have to think on your feet. 

There’s lots of variety: different sectors, different types of deals, different problems to work around and differentpeople.

Fundamentally, you’re helping people. Whether it’s an entrepreneur who’s built a business and wants to sell it and retire, or a family looking to pass it onto a new generation. 

You have to sit across the table and find out what’s most important for them.

Do they want to continue working for another five years to maximise the value, or are they desperate to get out on the golf course?

There’s often a lot of soul searching, because a business can be like an extension of the family.

It's the blood, sweat and tears. 

It's the time away from the kids or the memory of the family member who built it. 

When supporting owner managers who are great at what they do but don't necessarily know how to sell a business, you’re part business adviser and part therapist. 

People sometimes don’t understand how strong the emotional attachment to a business can be.

…and the worst?

Sometimes it can be challenging when owners don’t consider their exit until very late. 

If they want to retire at 60 but only call me in when they’re 59, you may need a couple of years to put issues right. 

We always work to maximise owners’ shareholder value, but if they start thinking about it at 55 and get a plan in place, there’s much more we can do.

The other challenge is that, unlike audits, where you may serve the same client for years, corporate finance projects can disappear like Scotch mist. 

Owners can decide not to sell, but even when sales go through, you start every year with a blank sheet. 

That’s the flipside of the variety and unpredictability I love.

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

When I joined Haines Watts in 2017, there was very little corporate finance work. 

I built a team for the offering in the north, and by the time we joined S&W in 2024, there were five of us doing deals and supporting clients all around the country. 

It’s not just building the business; it’s about the trust you build, because when owners are selling their business,they're entrusting you with their baby.

It’s similar when supporting buyers. They have to trust you because your advice can make a real difference. 

We worked on a project a while ago where we spotted a £1 million issue – an inherent liability. 

If we hadn’t identified it, they would have hugely overpaid. Instead, they got that money back.

How do you relax outside of work?

I have children of varying ages, so that keeps me quite busy when I’m not working!

What makes the North East such a great place to live and work?

It’s a hidden gem. People think that nothing happens outside London, but there are some incredible businesses in the North East. 

We’ve got a real manufacturing heritage and expertise. 

They’re perhaps not building ships anymore, but those same skills are now deployed making drones or something else.

There are real specialisms that you don't find elsewhere. 

Somewhere like Birmingham is probably the closest comparison. 

You turn a corner on a not particularly glamorous industrial estate, and you find a business that’s doing something fabulous. 

There’s some real expertise here, and there’s some great advisers, too. 

It’s a community of people who work together and trust each other.

Tell us something about you we didn’t know…

Well, I still do quite a lot on the farm. 

My dad’s a sheep farmer, and I help him out during lambing season. 

I’m quite good at it, so if accounting doesn't work out, I’d make a cracking midwife for sheep!

Chris Hird corporate finance and transactions director at S&W. S&W provides accountancy and advisory services across the UK and Ireland, with regional offices in Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds and Harrogate.

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