Our People
We are a close-knit team of professional development experts, who have gravitated together thanks to our shared belief in what constitutes the best kind of training and the complementary way in which our skill sets combine and interact to ensure we deliver it.
Kay Thompson-Barker
Kay is our people person par excellence. A qualified member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the British Psychological Society, she has spent 20 years helping to create the structures and cultures that allow organisations – and the people within them – to thrive. Working with banks, retailers, blue-chip companies and not-for-profits, her areas of expertise span organisation development, people strategy, leadership, high performance team working, inclusivity and executive coaching.
David Culley
Few people get as passionate and excited about accountancy as David – especially when it comes to unleashing the power of financial know-how within a business. A fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management, as well as the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, the CPD courses that he designs and delivers for FFT always draw on the very latest ideas – including his own industry-leading research into big data, AI and the future of the accountancy profession.
Helen Kerrigan
The founder and heartbeat of Future Finance Training, Helen discovered her love of financial training while working for KPMG, where she started out her career as a practising auditor in 2001 before choosing to join the company’s learning and development team. Also known to tread the boards at Leeds Playhouse, she has a gift for designing and delivering courses that really hold the attention. And she plays the role of our managing director to perfection.
Clare Jones
Specialising in the design and delivery of our audit and financial reporting training, Clare is able to draw on over 20 years of experience – as a practising accountant, L&D lead for Baker Tilly International, and as a highly regarded trainer with experience in the UK, Australia, Bermuda, Nigeria, Europe and the US. Always ahead of the game when it comes to innovative teaching methods, she is the pro’s pro – often found delivering training courses to other trainers.
Emma McDonough
Before choosing to join FFT, Emma was one of our (very satisfied) clients. As Head of Technical Learning at Grant Thornton UK, she worked closely with us to develop training programmes for her audit teams and early career professionals. A practising accountant for several years, she has gone on to amass 15 years of experience in the industry as an L&D specialist – experience that now informs the way we aim to impress our next generation of clients.
Matthew Sparkhall-Brown
Whenever there is a new standard, amendment or issue in the financial reporting or audit of any sector, we can trust Matthew to be all over it. Drawing on decades of experience writing and developing courses for accountants, fund managers, equity analysts and other finance professionals, he loves nothing more than diving into the detail and coming up with a readily understandable training solution. And though he is based in South Africa, he is central to everything we do at FFT.