Graeme Morrison

Aware of the effects the pandemic was having on small businesses, Glenrothes-based founder Laura Taylor took the decision last summer to make the firm a permanent remote working operation.

Empowered By Cloud became one of the first businesses in Scotland to adopt such a model and the new strategy has paid off with a rapidly expanding client base.

To help cope with the rising workload, Ms Taylor embarked on a recruitment drive to bolster her team. Staff numbers quickly increased from three to 13, with the most significant appointment that of Graeme Morrison as virtual finance director.

Mr Morrison spent almost 10 years with Big 4 firm Ernst & Young before spending nearly four years as finance director at the Aberdeen-based Knight Property Group PLC. More recently he was finance director at Peterson SBS.

He said: “I was delighted to take up this new role and look forward to helping drive the company forward. Lockdown has been a real challenge for a lot of businesses. Many need accurate up-to-date information but can’t get into their offices so that is where our model and expertise come in to play and where the Cloud is so important.

“As far as system set-ups were concerned, we were in a good position to act when lockdown started. It was inevitable this method of working was coming and the pandemic has only served to accelerate it.”

Established in February 2018, the company’s client base has continued to expand throughout the UK, rising 136% in the past 12 months with the growth driven by a switch in focus from one-off projects to retained work managing finance departments across the country.

Empowered By Cloud now has staff based in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife, Aberdeen, Inverurie and Yorkshire.

The business is split into two areas. A virtual finance department includes a finance director level service plus bookkeeping, management accounts, cash flow forecasting and VAT returns, while the other main service of the company is finance system set-up, training and automation.