An analytical commercial Finance Executive high on energy and enthusiasm - best growing Retail and Leisure businesses via mergers, acquisitions and organically. Strategically assessing multi-site complexities and systems, his forte; coupled with the desire to provide excellent customer service.

Andy qualified as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse (London), having been a trainee on leaving school with a small firm in Bristol.

Andy has been in Retail and Leisure for over 30 years, starting off with Whitbread plc for 16 years as it moved from Beer to Leisure. He worked, inter alia, on the acquisition of Costa Coffee (when it initially had only 12 sites) and the organic expansion of Premier Inn (in those days Travel Inn when it had just over 100 sites). He next moved to Blacks Leisure into his first PLC Finance Director role: growing that Outdoor clothing business over 5 years from a market cap of £50m to one of over £200m in 2004.

Brief sojourns into Private Equity ownership with Mk One -Ladies fashion clothing, Esporta -Health gyms and Food to Go with EAT and West Cornwall Pasty, were interspersed between working with Nick Harding in gambling at Talarius and Praesepe. Firstly, growing Quicksilver in 15 months from 100 arcades to over 220, through 5 company acquisitions; before selling to European Gaming for £180m having tripled the shareholder value for this Aim-listed business. Then, after Gauselmann acquired Praesepe, from 2012 until his retirement from full-time employment in 2017, having grown Cashino and Beacon Bingo into the second largest Slots operator in the UK.

Andy’s remit, besides Finance, covered IT, Audit, Logistics, Property, HR and Legal Services.

Andy has been married to Caroline for 42 years with four grown up children and currently four grandchildren. He is an enthusiastic visitor to the gym, loves playing tennis and 5 aside football, is an avid theatre and concert goer and world-wide traveller. He has been Chair of Governors at a Primary School and is currently the Treasurer and a Trustee at Eastside Education Trust since 2018.