Profile: Wende Hubbard
Counting on mother’s advice leads to success for Wende Wende Hubbard will have had plenty of business advice and commercial tips during her four decades with accountancy firm Burgis & Bullock – but the one idiom which has determined her career is the age-old “Mother knows best”. The teenage Hubbard had eschewed ambitions – fuelled by watching episodes of TV drama Quincy – of becoming a forensic scientist but decided to move into the legal profession and was offered articles by Leamington law firm Wright Hassall. But there were doubts. She had performed well in the accountancy part of her business studies course at what is now Warwickshire College and it was her mother who suggested she explored accountancy before pinning her sails to the legal mast.
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Wende explains: “My mother was an accountant and had previously worked for Burgis & Colbourne – the local department store which became House of Fraser – and the Burgis was the same family as Burgis & Bullock. She suggested I just explore the accountancy route before making up my mind. “I wasn’t that sure to be honest, but arranged a meeting with one of the senior partners at Burgis & Bullock, John Francis. We mostly talked about Coventry City FC and, despite being a Liverpool fan, I managed to hold my own and emerged having accepted a post as a trainee accountant.” It not only proved a wise move – but also started a strong working relationship which was to serve both parties well.
Once Hubbard had qualified, which took five years in-house, she began to move up the ladder. “They were very different days. There had been no female partners in the firm, as was typical in the profession at the time, and it was very formal with partners referred to by their initials or formal titles “I didn’t have a grand plan. Yes, I was ambitious, but really because I wanted to progress and push myself rather than having a set goal of becoming a partner.” She worked in audit and progressed quickly, becoming a manager just a few years later and worked under Francis. The forensic nature of auditing perhaps satisfying the original desire to become Quincy!
“John – along with Jim Lord at Wright Hassall – was very much a senior figure in the Leamington business scene,” said Wende. “John was a director of the Leamington Building Society and was chair of governors of King’s High School and those outside interests served me well because it meant that I picked up the void that he was leaving. “Therefore, in turn, I was able to prove that I could successfully undertake work at that level and that really helped me when I pressed my case to become a partner.” Times have clearly changed since those days in the late 80s, and Hubbard’s elevation came at the perfect time for her to push forward the transformation of Burgis & Bullock, both attitudinally and structurally. www.cw-chamber.co.uk
