35 under 35 2022: Final winners announced!

The Accountancy Age 35 under 35 seeks to highlight the rising stars of the accountancy profession, featuring those who have made great professional contributions to the field and their individual firms.

Each day this week, we have unveiled a batch of winners who made the final cut. Today, we present the final five professionals who made the Accountancy Age 35 under 35.

The official Accountancy Age 35 Under 35 2022 ranking page will be available view from the morning of September 30.

Mark Adderley, manager, Crowe UK

Mark Adderley’s career continues to go from strength to strength at Crowe and is an important part of its team. He has been pivotal in growing the firms national Solicitors Accounts Rules team and leads training and development on this sector for the firm, including scoping the firm’s methodology and best practice.

Adderley is an Executive Council Member for the ILM which has helped facilitate growth in this sector for the firm. He spends a lot of his time developing team members and leads on the office training as well as one to one training with members of the team to ensure that they develop in their career and benefit from his guidance. Adderley leads from Crowe’s Midlands office as an office champion for its LGTBQ+ & Allies Network and also is part of the Crowes National ED&I Steering Group whereby he continues to provide insights into offering a diverse and inclusive place to work.

Crowe’s team is made up of people from many cultures and backgrounds and Adderley has been vital in organising events to help celebrate those backgrounds. He made manager at an early age and is one of the youngest members of Crowe’s manager group. He has an excellent career ahead of him and his colleagues at Crowe believe he will excel in growing the firm and continuing to develop those around him.

Sara Andrews, partner, Haines Watts

Since joining as a manager in 2018, Sara Andrew’s impact and influence has been felt across the Haines Watts Group. She has played an integral part of the North East’s organic growth, leads the group’s specialist incentives and reliefs (I&R) team, has pioneered the North East’s social value strategy, and is leading the charge on innovation and new ways of working across the firm.

In recognition of her leadership, ambition and vision beyond her day-to-day role, she quickly progressed to associate partner and was promoted to partner in early 2022. She has grown the I&R team headcount from 5 to 25 and developed new specialisms. She plays a hands-on role supporting the team’s career development, drawing upon her learnings from the firm’s Leadership Development Programme. Her coaching and mentoring has resulted in 12 internal promotions across the team. With Sara at the helm, the team has helped organisations access over £105m in tax relief – a critical source of cashflow throughout the pandemic.

Andrews has spearheaded the region’s social value strategy, which involved partnering with a CIO to support young people with their employability skills. This entailed delivering workshops on LinkedIn, CV writing and mock interviews, alongside fundraising for the organisation. She regularly takes part in Newcastle and Northumbria University’s employability weeks to inspire and educate the next generation on forging a career path in the industry.

Holding an enviable reputation with businesses and external stakeholders in relation to I&R. She regularly lectures and holds seminars for business leaders, industry bodies, and professional advisors. She takes a leading role in Haines Watts’ R&D committee, ensuring the firm maintains the highest of standards whilst educating business owners on the implication of regulatory changes.  She also led on a significant project to streamline the firm’s approach to R&D claims, overseeing a six-figure investment into a bespoke claim management system.

Andrews is currently undertaking an innovation project in collaboration with other Haines Watts offices, researching client service in a high-growth environment. Conducting quantitative and qualitative research with stakeholders to understand how the firm and wider industry can respond to the changing needs of businesses in the face of modern working practices. With a focus on further growth, Andrews is seizing the opportunity of change in the R&D industry to recruit the very best people to guide clients through new standards and guidelines.

John Atkins, partner, Larking Gowen

John Atkins leads on trainee support at a major independent firm, and looks after the recruitment, training and development of an increasingly large number of student accountants. He works very closely in partnership with his training provider First Intuition and is constantly pushing for more effective ways to support the trainees in his care.

He also works very well with his internal team and understands the specific issues being faced by many of his trainees at an individual level. Atkins seems to balance the strategic and the operational extremely well. He approaches everything in a very positive and enthusiastic manner, always with the best interest of his students at heart. He also makes efforts to get involved in the local business community and is an increasingly important part of the Norwich professional scene.

Natalie Binstead-Wey, founder & CEO, BW Business Accountants & Advisers

Natalie Binstead-Wey launched BW Business Accountants & Advisers in April 2021 and since then the practice has gone from a standing start to having worked with nearly 30 clients in year one, a turnover of £45k and a profit after tax of £15k. All of this was achieved with Natalie working just three days a week for the business.

BW is founded on the foundations of community, sustainability and diversity, meaning that she chooses to put people and the planet ahead of profit. In line with these core values, BW has donated 150 days of childhood education and sponsored several local initiatives to support the Bristol community. BW was included in the AccountingWeb Class of 2021 as one of the year’s most successful start up practices and has recently been shortlisted for the Sole Practitioner of the Year award at the Accounting Excellence awards.

Alongside running BW, she has taught on the Accounting & Finance undergraduate degree programme at UWE and brought real life practice experience to the classroom. She has supported her students to run the university’s pro bono clinic and provided approximately 20 hours of pro bono accountancy services to small businesses in Bristol as well as providing invaluable work experience for undergraduate students.

In addition, she was the ICAEW West of England president for 2021-22, a role which involves representing the 5,500 ICAEW members in the region. As ICAEW West of England President, she has supported chartered accountants in her region to adapt to life during and after the pandemic.

Throughout the year, she and the wider ICAEW West of England committee engaged with members on key local matters, connecting people from the same location or who share common challenges in similar sectors. She has also supported a small team of local ACA students to reinvigorate the student society in order to provide networking opportunities to local students throughout their ACA studies, something which will help to develop the next generation of accountants.

Binstead-Wey has established herself as key player in the accounting world, through the work she is doing for her clients and by putting sustainability at the heart of everything she does. Natalie is also a positive role model for aspiring accountants and has sought to inspire the next generation of accountants by demonstrating the value that accountants can add to their clients and to society.

Isobelle Bristol, adviser, Old Mill

Isobelle ‘Izzy’ Bristol gained her AAT, ATT and ACA qualifications within seven years. At 21, she was selected to join the Old Mill’s Junior Adviser programme and, at 25, now sits as Senior Accountant and Adviser with the firm.

Izzy has a passion for speaking to clients and an aptitude in finding solutions for their problems. She believes “accounting doesn’t need to be dull” and her methods and techniques has gained her a large portfolio of loyal clients and admirers, demonstrating age is not an issue, and consistently receiving high levels of satisfactory feedback.

She has worked hard to ensure accounting isn’t just something you have to do as a business owner. She believes it should be something that aids decision making and planning. She has brought this enthusiasm and passion to her clients and the team around her.

Izzy’s unique contribution to the industry is her ability to assess future efficiencies and opportunities and bring them to fruition for the whole firm to benefit. She works in the commercial team at Old Mill and has played a pivotal role in creating and bringing to market a new digital package based offering to small businesses.

The way accountancy is changing with the introduction of MTD is something she sees as a massive step forward for the industry, and having been involved with Xero since 2015, she has grown the digital business within the firm by training digital business champions. She is currently in the process of reviewing the accounts preparation procedures in the team to see where further efficiencies can be made.

Izzy has also pushed hard to bring in her environmental and social responsibilities into the workplace, for instance getting most of her clients to adopt paperless transactions. Not only does it help the environment, but she has proved it is a more efficient process for Old Mill and our clients.

Most recently, Izzy has been asked to become involved in the recruitment process, transferring to others the passion and talent that she has demonstrated over her career. The need for more female role models in accountancy is something she is particularly focused on and takes time to showcase her own experiences and career path to inspire others.