About James
I'm an ACCA qualified Finance Director with over 15 years' experience helping businesses improve profitability, strengthen financial visibility and make better commercial decisions.
Having spent much of my career working within the marketing sector, I understand the challenges agency leaders face. Revenue growth doesn't always translate into profit. Cash flow can become increasingly difficult to manage. Pricing decisions become more complex. Leadership teams often find themselves making important commercial decisions without the information they need.
Numbers alone rarely provide all of the answers. The real value comes from understanding the business behind them. That's where I focus my time.
Why I founded Hosier Commercial Advisory
I founded Hosier Commercial Advisory to provide the type of support many growing agencies need but often struggle to access.
Many agencies are too large to rely solely on bookkeeping and accounting support, but not yet at the stage where a full time Finance Director or CFO makes commercial sense.
They need experienced financial leadership, commercial insight and objective input without the cost of a permanent senior finance hire.
My Approach
Commercial first
Good financial reporting is important, but numbers only tell part of the story.
My focus is not simply explaining last month's results. It's helping leadership teams understand what drives performance and how they can improve it.
Understanding your business
I believe effective financial leadership starts with understanding the business behind the numbers.
That means taking the time to understand how the business operates, what clients value, how teams work together and what makes the business successful.
Context matters. Better context leads to better decisions.
For example, a loss-making client isn't necessarily a bad client. If it's the flagship account, helps attract creative talent and supports new business activity, removing it could create more problems than it solves.
Practical advice
I believe recommendations should be realistic, commercially sensible and capable of being implemented.
My aim is to provide practical support that creates meaningful improvements rather than theoretical advice that never leaves a presentation deck.
If you're looking for experienced financial leadership, commercial insight and practical support to help improve business performance, I'd be happy to discuss your challenges and how I can help.
Qualifications and experience
- ACCA qualified
- Finance Director for £50m+ agency
- 15+ years' marketing sector experience
- Commercial and operational finance leadership