Bradley Lewington, Founder of Generative and Board Advisor. Former CEO of Spencer Ogden
I have worked with Maria on the board of SR2 for the last 2 years and firstly really enjoyed working with her. She brings a great balance of finance & commerical skills and knowledge to the board room, I was particularly impressed with the quality of reporting she was able to produce and the depth of analysis for board packs on the key drivers. I watched the business grow and evolve significantly during her time and she enabled the company to navigate that complexity with ease and she has left a very well run and tight ship behind!
Chris Sheard – CEO, SR2 Rec Ltd
Maria joined SR2 at a time when the finance function needed significant rebuilding and stabilising. She did an outstanding job creating structure, control and scalability into the business and played a huge part in strengthening the finance function over the 4 years following this.
During her time with us, the business evolved significantly and expanded internationally across multiple entities, bringing increased operational and financial complexity. Maria did an exceptional job navigating that growth while leading a highly effective finance function and contributing strategically at Board level throughout that journey.
I personally want to thank Maria for the incredible contribution she has made to SR2 over the last 4 years, initially joining us as a contractor FD before becoming a permanent member of the senior leadership team and leaving SR2 as a seasoned CFO operating at Board level. She leaves having made a hugely positive impact on the business, and I know everyone across SR2 joins me in thanking her for all of her hard work, commitment and support over the years.
Charlie Walker – MD of Vivid Resourcing, part of G2V
I worked alongside Maria in the capacity of Founder/Managing Director of Vivid Resourcing, and during a period of secondment during which I oversaw the Operations and Finance function at G2V.
Maria's time at G2V coincided with significant investment in the business infrastructure, and subsequently a great deal of business change. During this period, she excelled with her management of the company's transfer to an alternative Invoice Discounting provider and supported a shift to an alternative Finance and Pay and Bill system for circa £60 million of revenues.
Maria inspires loyalty from her teams, has a great work ethic and - importantly - instils the importance of compliance and fiduciary duties within a business.
Matthew Young – Relationship Director RBS
Maria was the Project Director at G2 Recruitment and Vivid Resourcing for 3 months whereby her Project role was to bring all business funding over to RBS from Lloyds. As part of her Project role, Maria negotiated the Group’s Invoice Discounting and end to end banking facility across 7 different currencies with RBS, and implemented all aspects of the Group’s complex banking facility. In what appeared to be a highly pressured environment, with a significant amount of growth and change going on – Maria managed to negotiate all ID and Banking terms and fully implement the end to end facility to the exact deadlines dictated by RBS. Maria’s stakeholder management and change management skills are also very impressive. Throughout the whole process Maria always delivered against the expectation and level of accuracy that was required by RBS and proactively communicated to all of the parties involved in the implementation process.
David Paddington – Finance Business Partner at EE
Few people have the opportunity to report to a manager who is also a coach and mentor - but I had this pleasure whilst working for Maria in EE.
I am particularly impressed by her ability to command a room and get people on board with often highly complex Finance concepts and ideas (even people who were initially on very different pages).
As a leader, Maria earns my highest recommendation.
Nick Powell
I reported directly to Maria during my initial period at G2V. It was clear from the team she had created, that she had the support & respect of her whole team, with a management style that allowed those she managed to feel empowered to carry out their role without being micromanaged & this created a level of goodwill from those within her team, that I have not seen in any previous team I have been part of.
She is extremely professional & has the right balance of specific Financial/Accountancy skills, along with people skills, encouraging the best from her team. Maria is extremely talented, driven & great to work with/for. Her commercial awareness clearly benefited G2V from my perception & she went above & beyond the remit of her role to ensure the success of her own team, but more importantly the wider business.
Any company would be very lucky to have Maria on board & I was sad not to have been able to work with her for a longer period.
Leah Burrows – Director of Recruitment
Maria is an extremely capable manager who has been a pleasure to work with on numerous recruitment projects over the past few years. She has a dynamic and positive approach and has clearly been very successful in her previous roles.
Leon Lloyd – GTM Leader: Higher Ed...AI/Tech_Content/Curriculum Innovation Champion
Maria makes things happen. She is a hard working and motivated individual with strong financial knowledge and tremendous commercial acumen.
Since working with Maria I have seen how she can effectively manage a large team whilst also having a team who want to work for her. Maria is able to apply herself effectively outside of her comfort zone, and would be an asset to any organisation.
Sarah Crawford – Director at Flair for Recruitment
Maria is an extremely professional, likable and hard working individual who is always honest and a pleasure to work with. Maria is passionate and very focussed - I really do thoroughly enjoy working with Maria and would always strongly recommend her!
Kate Allison – Global Category Director
Maria is not only extremely conscientious at delivering results within her own role, but also extremely supportive of her colleagues working around her. I have had the pleasure of working with Maria in two businesses and would happily work alongside Maria again. We work well as a team and she comprehensively explains what is needed within each business we have worked in together. So every member of each company is fully aware, at all times, of what has been or needs to be achieved.
She is an extremely confident and capable person who is an asset to any business environment she works in. Maria is a likeable individual on both a personal and business level and knows exactly how to get the best out of everyone she works with. I’d hope to work with her again in the future.
Jason Lessard – Lean IP Strategy
Maria was reliable and thorough and always took the time to understand the needs of our unconventional business. She was well liked and respected.
Tristan Rice – Partner @ SI Global | Leading M&A Advisory Practice
Maria has very sound financial and communication skills - a rare combination. While FC at Epoch Design during its sale to Loewy Group, she managed the DD process without missing a beat. A pleasure to deal with too.
Mark Benjamin – Head of Marketing at The Wave
Maria was tasked with overhauling MediaClash's accountancy structure and reporting so the company could see the true profitability of each project. Maria excelled in creating processes that were intuitive and helped make financial reporting much more efficient and accurate. Based on Maria's recommendation we brought in a cost efficient CRM system that helped us manage jobs effectively and gave us greater visibility of costs. Which certainly made my life easier and transformed our ability to focus on net profitability.
Simon Tapscott – nearfield | media consultant
Maria joined MediaClash soon after its launch and both quickly and effectively introduced a number of systems and processes that were essential to the efficient management of the business.
Maria is very commercially focused and multi-skilled, and never loses sight of the key business priorities. I have no hesitation in recommending her.