Finance for Non-Finance Managers Course

Tara Askham is a qualified lecturer specialising in finance and a Fellow of the Association of Accounting Technicians. As a Finance Director, Tara co-founded multi-award-winning social enterprise Infused Learning and wrote the first Accountancy Access to Higher Education Diploma in the country. She designs and delivers finance courses to companies around the UK including Volkswagen. She inspects colleges’ accounting provisions on behalf of the Association of Accounting Technicians and works as a consultant subject matter expert for global accountancy awarding bodies writing and moderating exam material. She wrote the global award-winning ACCA-X finance course and is a published author for Osborne Books. Her experience has led to her role with NatWest as a Social and Community Capital credit panel member. (Part of the independent credit panel to analytically review each charitable proposal for funding). Tara is also a guest Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University.   

After graduating from Manchester University with a BA in Economics Paul enjoyed a successful commercial career, first in the City as a Futures and Options trader, and then founding and helping to build a number of successful businesses, two of which are still trading today. 

After gaining an MBA at Strathclyde Graduate Business School he became part of the team that built ‘Reality Group’ into one of the UK’s leading ecommerce companies before its successful sale to GUS Plc in 2000. Building on his strong interest in innovation and creativity, Paul developed a specialist stand - alone Consultancy Practice specialising in Lateral Thinking, before entering academia in 2010 as a senior lecturer specialising in postgraduate, executive and work-based learning programmes for business students.  

Christine Silvester  is a qualified chartered accountant, (ICAEW)  who runs her own accountancy practice in Warwickshire where she specialises in the provision of accounting and tax compliance services to a range of small businesses. She also provides tutoring, support and guidance to business owners in the understanding and requirements of finance.  

After  qualifying as an accountant  with Coopers & Lybrand in Birmingham Christine briefly worked in financial recruitment before moving to work for BT.  During 12 years at BT  she worked in various  senior financial management  roles including Head of Business Planning and Forecasting for one of the divisions in the company which required working with operational teams across the business.   

Christine has over 37 years working  in Finance and has gained a wealth of experience which ranges from working with large teams and budgets in excess of £1bn to supporting start up businesses including building and running her own successful business for almost 20 years.  Christine enjoys sharing these experiences through her various tutoring roles.