Corporate Finance Manager, Connor McBride, goes under the spotlight!

What is your role within RG?

I am a Manager within Corporate Finance here at RG. My role involves advising SMEs, entrepreneurs and investors on a wide variety of transactions, through all stages of a business’ lifecycle. Typically this involves advising on M&A, MBOs, business disposals and fundraising but can often involve the provision of strategic advice.

Tell me about your career to date…

I graduated from Northumbria University with a degree in Business Management before qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with PwC in Belfast. Whilst at PwC I got the opportunity to work with a lot of SMEs, providing outsourced finance services and strategic advice. It was this time spent working with SMEs that sparked my interest in working alongside owner/managers to help them realise their goals and ambitions for their business.

I joined RGCF in November 2019 and the past year and half has flown by. It has been an incredible experience and I have had the opportunity to work alongside some great clients and professional contacts.

What does your current role involve?

At the risk of sounding stereotypical, my current role is incredibly varied and that is probably one of the most enticing elements of the job. From one meeting/call to the next we can be advising on two drastically different transactions, with different dynamics and stakeholders.

As a CF manager I am involved in the preparation and review of reports for clients, whilst working alongside my senior colleagues on more specialised transactional advice. 

What makes RG different?

I would have to say the people. My team is led by 2 exceptional CF partners who have vast experience in lead advisory and both are very keen to help me and the rest of the team progress in our careers.

My 3 most notable achievements to date would be….

  1. I think my most notable achievement to date is becoming a Chartered Accountant. It’s not an easy qualification to achieve and they were 3 of the most challenging years of my career..
  2. I completed my Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award whilst at school, something that took a lot of hard work and dedication alongside studies and sport commitments.
  3. Whilst at school I was involved with the Northern Ireland Cross country running team in addition to playing senior rugby at First XV level for my school.

Tell us about your day so far….

I’m an early riser, so I’m typically up at 6:00am and I like to check in on emails before I get started for the day. Every Monday we have our CF team meeting when we run through each of our live mandates as a team and set out our list of actions for the coming week. That ran until 11 and was followed with another couple of meetings / calls.

After lunch I got started on an Information Memorandum for a business that we are advising on the disposal of and that took up most of the rest of my day.

I finished up with some email correspondence and I will hopefully get finished around 7pm when I’ll head off to make dinner with my girlfriend.

What do you enjoy outside of work?

Outside of work I enjoy playing and watching most sports. I play 5-a-side football every Wednesday and I do my best to get around a golf course without losing too many golf balls whenever I can.

I also really enjoy cooking and entertaining friends and family.

And finally, leave us with one interesting fact about yourself…

Before the pandemic I had started to take surf lessons as it is something I have always wanted to be able to do. Needless to say that dream has been on pause for the last 18 months however I hope to get back at it soon!

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