The Importance of Mentoring with Graeme Gordon

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Show Summary

On this episode we interview Graeme Gordon. We discuss how critical mentoring can be to your accounting practice, both to give and receive. Graeme brings his wealth of knowledge and experience gained from years of leadership in accounting.  He explains that it is paramount to your business to be a mentor to your clients; to go beyond just being a compliance or transaction-based accountant. He also discusses how powerful it is to find a mentor who’s not ingrained in your industry in order to truly expand your knowledge base. Welcome to episode 89 of the Grow My Accounting Practice.

Our Guest 

Græme is the CEO of a Praxity – Global Alliance a global accounting and allied professional firms alliance, so with well over 20 years past SME, Charity and PIE experience in Business, comes an in-depth knowledge of all sizes of Businesses from those of £1m to £1Bn. This, he contends, ensures he has significant recent relevant knowledge and experience.
Prior to joining Praxity, Græme was the CEO of Emile Woolf International, training accounting and key soft skills in several parts of the world, including Moscow, Beijing,New York and Islamabad.
Græme’s employments before that were (in reverse order):
  •  CFO/COO of Macro 4 plc -London Stock Exchange main Board listed software plc
  • CFO/Compliance Director, Durlacher plc -listed Merchant Bank
  • CFO/Compliance director, Regent Technology Ltd – Private M&A IT Boutique
  • Director of Administration & Finance, NFL International (American Football)
  • Franchise owner of Crittal Double Glazing – Dorset & Hampshire
  • Officer in Royal Navy, Fleet Air Arm

Græme is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales,and a Liveryman and a member of the Court of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, as well as a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Feltmakers.

As well as serving two ‘tours’ as President of Thames Valley Society of Chartered Accountants (2003 & 2009), on who’s Main Committee he still sits, Graeme has served on several Committees and Boards for the Institute of Chartered Accountants,and is now a member of their Nominations Committee. He also regularly meets with International members of the Institute around the world from Chicago and New York, to Panama City and Kyiv. Thus, not only engaging our international members with the Institute’s offerings, but also getting direct feed back from yet another key constituency of the Institute.

Graeme was, for over 10 years, the Producer and Treasurer of a Charity, Chiltern Shakespeare Company, (CSC) which annually produces and performs a Shakespeare play in the Grounds of Hall Bard, Beaconsfield to a, collective,audience of 4,000 per annum, via 10 performances. The gross turnover of CSC is annually circa £120,000.  Græme is Married to Sharon, (36 years) and they have three Children; Samantha(30, Solicitor), Callum (27, Film producer) and Caitlin (18, student at Nottingham).

Show Links

Website: http://www.praxity.com/news/Lists/Categories/Category.aspx?CategoryId=9&Name=Blog%20Posts

Facebook: @GRG_Praxity

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Comments

2 thoughts on “The Importance of Mentoring with Graeme Gordon”

  1. Many thanks Ron and Mike for episode 89 on Mentoring. I agree with most of what your guest said. I would add that some of the skills that Graeme Gordon described were coaching skills: essentially ‘coaching’ is about drawing out from the person, whereas mentoring is more about putting in to the person. It it’s helpful I can share a chapter I wrote for the UK Institute of Directors ‘Growing Business Handbook 2015’ on Coaching and Mentoring for Business Growth.
    One other comment: I’m a professional business mentor (as well as career and wellbeing coach) and my mentees don’t seem to have any issues with paying me 🙂
    I hope this helps.
    Kind regards, Ross Nichols

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