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Martin qualified as a chartered accountant in 1982 at Deloitte Haskins & Sells, South Africa.
In 1986 Martin left the profession and joined Supervision Food Services, a fast-growing contract catering company, a subsidiary of a large listed South African group. He was promoted to the dual role of Finance and Commercial Director, and for eight years played an active role in growing the business from an annual turnover of £7m to £50m. Aside from development of finance and systems functions, he was also active in strategy, sales, HR and operations.
In 1994, Martin moved to the UK where he joined the Brand Group, a privately-owned contract catering and software development group, as Commercial Director, responsible for group accounting, strategy and commercial initiatives. Turnover of the group was £50m. In 1996 the company was sold to Marriott Management Services.
In 1997, Martin joined a start-up contract catering company as Commercial Director where he set up the accounts function including staff appointments, systems design and management accounts. Turnover grew from £500,000 to £5m.
Since 2005, Martin has gained experience across a diverse range of SMEs in the healthcare, IT, manufacturing and service industries. Most companies have been privately-owned, fast-growing businesses where his contribution, aside from the development of the finance function, has been in the strategic and commercial direction of the business.
Since joining FD Solutions, Martin has assumed the finance director role at two companies, one a biopharmaceutical company and the other a distribution company.
At the biopharmaceutical company, a decision had been taken to close down some of their operations involving significant redundancies and to relocate the accounting function to London. During his time there, Martin has:
At the distribution company, he has:
