About Us
We believe your people should be your greatest asset
Our Mission:
To measure and develop finance professionals.
We believe that the current assessment process for financial professionals is flawed. Being qualified for a role does not guarantee a candidate is capable of delivering what is required.
We created The Acuity Measure™ to provide a simple and effective means of assessing finance individuals to highlight their strengths and weaknesses. This allows existing and potential team members to develop – strengthening finance teams and their associated businesses.
Our Values
Continuous Improvement
We continuously review and improve our processes to ensure that The Acuity Measure™ is always at the vanguard of technical assessment and validation. Our work is evidence driven and we are relentless in our pursuit of perfection.
Do The Right Thing
We conduct our business in accordance with the highest ethics of the accounting profession, and pride ourselves on being open, honest and genuine.
Humbly Confident
We offer and accept apologies graciously, we easily admit to mistakes and readily acknowledge weaknesses, whilst being confident in our abilities.
Collaborative
We value team work, open discussions and sharing of best practices and issues.
Ben Mekie – CEO and Founder
Ben Mekie is an accomplished and highly experienced board advisor and an active entrepreneur with a proven track record in founding and building successful businesses through to market sale, generating premium shareholder value.
His experience covers a variety of areas including: strategy development, defining and delivering growth strategies, identifying and implementing business change, steering and leading strategic business sales, recruiting and building high performing teams, strategic M&A / buy & build, financial management and corporate governance as well as, corporate finance.
Chris Turberville-Tully – Chief Operations Officer
Chris is an experienced leader, having worked in mostly digital marketing, for the last 15+ years. Before that he had a successful career in the Royal Navy being involved in project management, information architecture and PR, as well as gaining an MSc in the process.
Since leaving the Royal Navy in 2008, Chris has set-up and led his own digital marketing agency, which he successfully sold in 2015. He has advised and worked with businesses of all types and sizes from Dow Jones and FTSE 100s to start-ups. With wide cross-sector experience, Chris has deep knowledge in FinTech, Automotive, B2B, Property, Retail & Manufacturing.
Howard Jackson – Chief Product Officer
Howard spent the first half of his career in the accounting profession, working for Deloitte for eight years. During this time, he was involved in trainee recruitment, edited Insight, the firm’s technical bulletin, and designed a new audit programme for regional offices.
He also led the audit and tax department of an accountancy firm and was responsible for all technical staff recruitment and development.
In 2004, Howard moved into industry and became the FD of a construction company and, two years later, he moved to FD Solutions where he acted as an FD consultant for a range of clients. His work included developing and mentoring Finance Teams, as well as improving systems and processes.
In 2013. He became Managing Director of FD Solutions and was responsible for the supervision, mentoring and development of the firm’s 20 finance directors, each of whom worked with a portfolio of clients.
During his time at FD Solutions, Howard worked with Acuity Associates to develop bespoke assignments for their FD recruitment service.
Howard left FD Solutions in 2015 to return to working with clients directly and in 2023 joined The Acuity Method™ to lead its technical division.
David Robson – Chief Learning Officer
Dave very much focuses on ‘what is the desired outcome?’ when considering learning and assessment requirements, having developed and deployed both knowledge delivery and practical application approaches via a variety of channels (face to face, online delivery, self-led eLearning solutions) for B2B and B2B customers. He believes it’s important to reflect both the needs of the individual learner and the needs of a business, as effective learning provides numerous benefits including personal development, cultural emphasis and competitive advantage.
Dave has spent over a decade in the training and education space, focusing on Compliance and Financial Crime. This has included the creation of formal Certifications, multi-level assessments, customised and role specific training, competence frameworks and ongoing learning options. He has worked closely with a variety of organisations including tier one banks and government bodies across the world, fulfilling a variety of learning needs.
He also has a deep experience of working ‘with’ clients and building partnerships – immersing in existing frameworks, pathways and messaging to ensure that resultant solutions complement the organisation, and feel part of it.
Jonathan Smith – Chief Finance Officer
Jonathan is a qualified chartered management accountant who has extensive experience in financial leadership and CFO roles within start-up and growth businesses, drawing on a career history at both Group and Divisional level in blue-chip, financial services companies – including some of the largest retail banking organisations in the UK. He has an international outlook and experience, and has developed and led high calibre teams, working with Board and external stakeholders to navigate complex transformational change as well as building finance functions from the ground up. For the past ten years he has worked with growth-minded business leaders as a fractional CFO to deliver financial infrastructure, information and insight for their business.
Diane Higgins – Business Director
Diane is a Director at The Acuity MethodTM , responsible for research and strategy.
She was previously an experienced conference director with excellent research, programme writing, marketing, organisational, networking, sales and leadership skills. She has worked in many sectors but mainly in finance and procurement.
Matt St John Richardson – Account Director
Matt has spent virtually his entire career in the people consulting profession within organisational consulting firms such as Korn Ferry, SpencerStuart, Russell Reynolds, and other leading corporations.
He has worked on the ground in some fifty countries and brings extensive experience advising companies around the world on organisational development, strategy activation & innovation, performance appraisal, diagnostic, formative, summative and psychometric assessment, talent migration, HR advisory, and leadership consulting.
Prior to joining Acuity, Matt spent 14 years advising companies active in the Financial Services, Financial Technology, Digital Banking & TMT space. These companies included PayPal, Amazon, HSBC, Boeing, McLaren & Orange Group.
Matt studied at Harvard, HBS, MIT, Yale, and Oxford.
John Sills – Board Advisor
John is a Board Advisor to The Acuity MethodTM and supports the Technical Assessment Team.
A commercially oriented Finance Director John has worked successfully in businesses at all stages of development including start-ups, maturing small businesses and established multi-nationals.
John has held senior finance and operational positions at Action for Children (Director of Finance), Econet Wireless (Finance Director), Orange (Finance Director: B2B mobile), Wanadoo / Freeserve (CFO and Director of Operational Finance / CFO) and the Dixons Stores Group.
