Our recent Inc Consulting X Sheffield and District Student Society Social at Club de Padel went exactly how we’d hoped. The event sold out in minutes, with 60 aspiring accountants and finance professionals from across Sheffield coming together for an evening of padel, pizza, and a break from the day job and studies.  We had attendees from a wide range of firms across the region - meeting others going through the same journey, building relationships, and none of the usual awkward networking.  Since the event, we’ve had a lot of interest from both Partners and ACA students asking the same thing: what is S&DCASS, and why should my team or I get involved?  So, we sat down with Korresia MacGregor, Chair of the Sheffield & District Chartered Accountants Student Society (S&DCASS), to get her take. 

For finance professionals building their careers in industry, the route to Finance Director or CFO is not always linear - and the skills required go far beyond technical expertise. Decisions made early on around operational exposure, leadership development, ownership environments and stakeholder management can have a lasting impact on long-term progression. In this interview, we speak with Jon Blythe, an experienced Group Chief Financial Officer whose career has been shaped through senior finance roles in complex manufacturing and multi-site businesses. Having worked across privately owned organisations, UK operations within US-owned groups, and private-equity-backed environments, Jon brings a pragmatic, experience-led perspective on what genuinely prepares finance professionals for senior leadership. This conversation is relevant for Financial Controllers and Heads of Finance who are thinking about their next step to FD, as well as Qualified Accountants thinking ahead - offering candid insight into operational grounding, leadership capability, and the realities of operating at board level.