The view after two years
As we approach the end of our second year as a company, I wanted to take the opportunity to give all of our clients, partners and contacts an insight into how we are doing as a team as well as what we are really proud of. This is somewhat of a contrast to the usual regulatory insights and gap analyses that the team have tirelessly been producing this year!
Since our inception, we have remained focused on our mission of creating purposeful, innovative, understandable and outcome driven work that actually helps and enhances the way our clients operate. We have also been committed to building a culture of excellence, collaboration, and transparency within our team, which has helped us achieve some significant milestones and growth.
Here are some of the ways we have all grown in the last two years:
1. We have our first home:
We have moved into our first proper office at 1 Cornhill in the City. Yes, it is just an office(!) but it has already had a number of expected and unexpected benefits. When we started the firm, one of my main priorities was to create an environment where we could hire the best possible people we could. I wanted the company to be somewhere that enabled them to do their best possible work while not having to sacrifice their personalities and lives outside work.
To do this, operationally we needed to be as good as we possibly could be, from the smallest detail such as IT equipment that consistently worked, to giving the team somewhere (following the worst of the pandemic) to work that we could all be proud of. Where we could bring clients. And where we could socialise and learn from each other. We have a rigidly hybrid work model based on each team member’s needs and the team are based all over the UK. But if people want or need to work together, we now have space to do this. I can already feel that it is helping us make our values and culture more tangible and embedded in everything that we do.
2. The team has grown:
These sort of updates always seem to focus on company related things but it is really important to me that we recognise what people have been doing outside work. The reason I wanted to work in consulting in the first place was because I love interacting with all types of people (usually with the aim of having a bit of a laugh) and it’s a side of the business that continually fascinates me. In the team we have had weddings, births, house moves, rainy and sunny holidays, first steps, first days at school, nits, nativity plays and a lot more. People always have a lot going on, so I hope, and like to think, that the environment we have created at Avyse has helped them be themselves both in and out of work.
We have also grown in number to 17 client facing staff by adding talented individuals to our already well-regarded teams. These hires have been at all levels and from differing backgrounds. They have made the company more diverse and brought fresh impetus and thinking to the great work we were already doing. From a personal perspective it has been challenging hiring the best people we possibly can. The flip to this is that when we have identified the right people they have added a huge amount of value to what we are doing quickly.
Finding and hiring the best people in the market remains our biggest challenge and goal. We are looking for people with strong interpersonal, technical and commercial skills in regulation which is already a specialist area of expertise - and that includes complementary new service offerings. We are also looking for individuals who are curious, intelligent, and hungry to succeed (if this sounds like you then get in touch!). This means that we have hired more slowly than we would have liked but the quality of our work and reputation have flourished which is one of the most valuable things to us. Despite these challenges we will have some exciting news on our new practices and business areas in the coming months as we continue to grow.
3. The company has grown:
We have grown commercially. One of the biggest worries when starting the company was that we would not be able to sell enough work. Thankfully we have found our belief, that clients like buying from people that they know and trust, to be true. We have seen significant improvements in revenue and profit over the last financial year. Both of these metrics are important to us, but being new, the profitability position makes it more likely I sleep at night! The commercial performance has been greatly helped in the last year by being on Lots B (Governance, Accountability, Strategy and Culture), C (Controls and risk management frameworks), D (Conduct of Business), E (Financial Crime) and M (Provision of services to the FCA) of the FCA’s skilled person panels.
We are very proud of this, and it has meant that we have been at the forefront of some of the most interesting, contentious and material regulatory work in financial services. Not only does it give us a market leading insight into how firms may get things wrong from time to time, but it also helps us understand what the FCA are focussing on and may be interested in.
We have also grown lots of great partnerships such as those with FCG and Xapien who sponsored of our financial crime conference as well as the ICA who have been publishing our regulatory gap analyses. These purposeful partnerships that hopefully help regulatory practitioners do their jobs in a better, more efficient and effective way is the part of the reason why we set the company up.
4. Some acknowledgements
When you start a company there seems to be no shortage of people either telling you well done (before you have actually achieved much more than thinking of a name) or telling you it is a hell of a risk that probably won’t come off. But the third group of people are the ones we owe a real thank you to. They are the ones that have truly believed and trusted in what we are doing. For me that list is long but starts with my wife and children that have been on the rollercoaster all the way. Secondly our clients, suppliers, referrers and contacts that have all either worked with us, introduced us to people that can help or generally given advice and had constructive (not just nice) things to say. We would simply not be in business without you, so thank you.
That’s all for now.
Ollie
