Speaker: Dax Mehta, Principal CFO, FD & CFO Centre
Dax Mehta: Hi. My name is Dax. I'm the Finance Director at Chase Lodge Hospital. I'm going to talk a little bit about the journey we've been on for the last 2.5 years since I've been there as the Principal Finance Director. And the impact that Esther has had when we brought YRH in to support the business.
What challenges were Chase Lodge facing before you started working with them?
Dax Mehta: I was brought in on the request of the bank who were, not really getting the information they needed in order to get a good understanding of the business. And I was brought in at a time where there was quite a complex restructuring going on as well as quite an aggressive growth strategy which required some significant bank support. So I was brought in because really, the numbers didn't make a lot of sense. The business owners believed a certain thing, but the numbers didn't reflect what they thought was their reality, and they couldn't convey their ambitions to the bank. So quite a series of challenges. And I was asked to kind of bring that
At what stage did you introduce Chase Lodge to YRH Finance Team?
Dax Mehta: So, interestingly, the finance manager who left was a full time employee. So the initial reaction from the owners was, well, we just need another full time employee. Whereas I took a different approach and I thought, actually, I don't think this is a full time job. I think we need someone very good, but they can probably do it in less than five days. Which is why I was confident in recommending the YRH solution to the owners. Uh, and it's born out. Absolutely. So Esther's come in, I think on about three days a week, sometimes four, effectively is about 10 times better than her predecessor and does it in probably two thirds of the time and therefore is a much more cost effective solution. So it's absolutely been a win-win all round.
Describe the difference bringing in YRH made
Dax Mehta: So you know, I needed someone to come in and really bring in some best practises. Um, and the procedures that were in place were very inefficient, were very cumbersome, and again I needed someone to kind of roll their sleeves up to look at how they did things. Um, so the difference has been has been immeasurable.
What makes the Liberti Group different to other solutions?
Dax Mehta: So I think there's a real advantage in the Liberti Principals knowing each other well and being very aware of the services of the sister companies, the sister businesses. Um, so in my particular example, I had got to know Roger, who was the Regional Director at YRH at the time. I know he's since left, but he'd been to the FD Centre monthly meetings. He'd been to our social, So I'd sort of come across him a number of times and got to know him reasonably well. So when our situation kicked off at Chase, I was very confident in being able to just pick up the phone to Roger and saying, "Roger, I've got a problem. Can you help?" and explaining what I needed. And within a couple of days, he came back and said, "Dax, I've got just the person for you" And him being able to say that to me with some confidence, gave me the confidence to then proceed and just brought it in Esther to meet the owners. I didn't need to interview Esther. Um, they just needed to make sure that they liked which they did. So we shortcut a potentially quite protracted recruitment process and within, you know, within 3 to 4 days we've replaced the old Finance Manager, put someone new in who hit the ground running very, very quickly. So I think having that knowledge of the sister businesses at that level of sort of trust and cooperation, I think is really important, and that makes us stronger as a whole.
