About David
The range
is the point.
David Lawson FCA
KPMG-trained · 25 years · Nine organisations
Finance · Commercial · Operations · Governance
Fractional Finance Director · Buckinghamshire
Professional background
KPMG-trained.
25 years.
Nine organisations.
The thread running through all of them is the same: going in, understanding what is really happening, fixing what is broken, and building what comes next.
The range is the point. This is not someone who has done the same finance role nine times. I've led finance teams, but I've also led operations teams. I've worked inside sales functions as a commercial finance partner. I've held governance roles at board level.
That cross-functional experience isn't a bullet point on a CV. It's the reason the Business Maturity Mapping model covers six dimensions, not one. When you've worked inside operations, commercial, and governance, you see things an FD who has stayed in finance cannot.
The career has always gravitated towards the same situation: a business where something needs diagnosing properly before anyone can fix it. Pre-sale financial clean-up, turnaround, building a finance function from scratch. The common thread is the diagnostic work.
The evidence
Career in numbers.
25
Years
Senior finance and commercial roles across the career.
9
Organisations
FTSE-listed to owner-managed. No two the same.
Spanning FTSE-listed and owner-managed businesses across multiple sectors. Finance, commercial, operations, and governance — in that order of frequency, not of priority.
£41m
Business sale
Commercial finance partner to the MD for ten years.
6
Dimensions
The Business Maturity Mapping model — built from experience.
Why fractional
Part-time
in presence,
not in commitment.
Fractional does not mean less committed. When I'm in your business, I'm fully in.
The work I do best — the diagnostic and build phase — doesn't require five days a week. It requires deep attention on the days that matter. The fractional model means you get senior capability without paying for time you don't need.
Most of my clients work with me one to two days a week. That's enough to transform the finance function and the decisions it supports. I go deep into a small number of businesses rather than spreading thin across many.
Every client gets the same attention I gave when I was a full-time FD. The difference is that you're not paying for the days in between. The value is in the thinking and the decisions, not in the hours at a desk.
Beyond the numbers
The photographs
throughout this site
are my own.
I've always been drawn to landscapes and cityscapes where structure reveals itself gradually: the way buildings layer, how light picks out contour and detail, the patterns you only see when you look carefully rather than quickly.
It's not a stretch to say that's how I approach a business. The surface tells one story. What sits underneath is usually more interesting.
I also serve as Finance Officer at Penn and Tylers Green FC because financial stewardship matters whether the turnover is £50,000 or £50 million.
Recommendations
Start a conversation
If what you've read
reflects where you are.
I work with a small number of businesses at any one time. The right starting point is usually a conversation — not a sales call, just an honest discussion about where the business is and whether I can help.