OUR PEOPLE - ANDREW HAMILTON

Why did you choose to join Bureau Veritas?

I wanted to join a globally recognised organisation and with the fact that BVSA trade on the French stock exchange was a big sell to me, I wanted the experience of working under both local and international accounting standards. 

How has Bureau Veritas enabled your career progression? 

Bureau Veritas has allowed me to tailor my career as I have gained more experience. I have worked closely with my Manager (Steven Gorman) through annual reviews and our monthly catchup to map out the career that I want to have at Bureau Veritas. Pleasingly this has given me confidence that if you take the initiative and want to achieve greater things, this is a place that will make it happen.

• I started Bureau Veritas in 2015 in a technical accounting role and although accounting was my first passion, I wanted to gain experience in managing a team. In 2017 Bureau Veritas gave me the opportunity to head up the general ledger team, which had various levels of finance professionals ranging from trainees to qualified accountants.
• In May 2020, I wanted to gain experience working with non-accountants where I could help drive profit. At this point, I headed up the procurement function in which I would be responsible for the spending on company cars, travel, communication and consumables.
• In 2021 I received the additional responsibility of owning the UK’s Financial Control environment for the entities operating within the Shared Service Centre. Most recently, I had the opportunity to Head up the Shared Service Centre Finance, which is comprised of accounts payable, credit control, treasury, general ledger team and procurement. Other exposures include a new finance system implementation and acquisition of MAC and Building Control.

Can you tell us about the Emerging Leaders programme?

The Emerging Leaders programme enabled me to transition into a leader through multiple channels:

• Personal mentoring from Katie White DISCOVER MORE ON KATIE WHITE
• Workshops such as storytelling and agile thinking amongst lots more
• A classroom-based course
• Live projects with other members of the Emerging Leaders course. Such as looking into ways of reducing travel spending during the pandemic
• Multiple opportunities to present to our senior leadership team, as presenting was a skill I was not as comfortable with and wanted to develop my competency in

What do you enjoy most about your role?

For me, Bureau Veritas is all about our people. Working with the colleagues here energises me, with supporting and enabling our junior talent to grow is also extremely rewarding.

A great example of this is Ellie Ralphs. Ellie started working at Bureau Veritas in 2014 in our Accounts Payable team, and after completing her AAT and CIMA qualifications, she is now a fully qualified Accountant. Since I started working with Ellie in 2017, it has been great to see her growth and achievements over the past years to where she is now. DISCOVER MORE 

What is the key highlight of your time at Bureau Veritas?

Take the lead on Bureau Veritas becoming Carbon Neutral by establishing relationships with Cabon Neutral UK and arranging Shell to offset the carbon from spend on our fuel card. At Bureau Veritas, we want to leave our mark, and this is a great real-life example of us delivering on these promises.

DISCOVER MORE ON BUREAU VERITAS CERTIFIED CARBON NEUTRAL