FEATURE
My Ambition is to... HANNAH HEANEY, SENIOR ACCOUNTANT, WHITEMOUNTAIN
W
hen studying at university, I did not anticipate that my career journey would lead me to become an accountant. After graduating from Queen’s University with a FirstClass Honours degree in Psychology, I applied to do a PhD with the aim of having a career in scientific research. However, being 2009, the number of funded places was sparse due to the recession. After graduation and whilst weighing up my options, I took a job as an accounts administrator at a local car dealership. The company accountant suggested that I complete the professional accountancy exams and, when I realised I could apply with a nonaccountancy based degree, I thought why not! I commenced my accountancy career as a trainee Chartered Accountant in 2011, working in an established city centre practice. I spent eight years working in the Advisory & Restructuring department before moving into industry with Whitemountain as a divisional accountant in 2019. In April of this year, I was promoted to senior accountant managing the transactional finance team. During my time in practice, I gained great exposure to different industries – everything from manufacturing to retail. Each client engagement had a fixed term and I found myself reaching a point where I wanted to work for one company, continuously improving its strategy and making a difference where I could see it through to the end. I had found construction to be particularly
interesting and noticed that Whitemountain was hiring. I was elated that I got the job – the first role I had applied for: it was meant to be. For me, the best thing about my role at Whitemountain is the sheer diversity of the work I do. Our business has a materials division, which incorporates supplies of bitumen, asphalt, and quarry materials to name a few, and we also have a contracting division which ranges from multi-millionpound civil engineering works to road surfacing, through to local government procurement works. As a finance professional, it is interesting to have the opportunity to learn and work across such a wide spectrum of operations. I am also very much a people person, so I thoroughly enjoy the number of interactions with the wider team, from the local finance and operations team within Whitemountain to my colleagues across ROI and GB also working for Breedon Group plc., our parent company.
I have always been a driven person and I love that no two days tend to be the same for me. As manager of the busy financial transactions team, there tends to be plenty going on each day, overseeing that all payment runs, invoicing, collections and reporting are completed on time. In addition to this, my day may also include providing finance support to operations across the wider business, working with my group finance colleagues, appraising capital expenditure and investment opportunities – there is always something interesting happening and every day flies by! Although I did not initially set out to have a career in accountancy, I am glad to have taken this path and it is a career that I would recommend to anyone. I aim to continue my focus on making a positive contribution through my work whilst furthering my own career development with the encouraging support provided by Whitemountain.
“Although I did not initially set out to have a career in accountancy, I am glad to have taken this path and it is a career that I would recommend to anyone. I aim to continue my focus on making a positive contribution through my work whilst furthering my own career development with the encouraging support provided by Whitemountain.” 12
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