Managing Director, Client Services

Position: Managing Director, Client Services

Salary: £110,000 per annum plus 20% performance bonus

Location: Hybrid – London or Manchester offices

Hours: Full Time

ABOUT US

Williams, Stanley & Co is a leading accountancy firm catering to a diverse range of clients within

the hospitality industry, from high street chains to family-run cafes. Our company began with a

mission to provide accurate and actionable financial insights to businesses, drawing from our

founders’ own experiences in managing multiple rapidly growing ventures.

Driven by a commitment to customer-first accounting, we’ve assembled a team of experienced

and trusted accountants who share our vision for excellence. With a strong emphasis on

collaboration and expertise, our team operates seamlessly across diFerent locations, including

the UK, Philippines and Dubai.

ABOUT YOU

We are hiring a Managing Director, Client Services to run delivery across Accounts, Payroll and

Statutory & Tax. You will lead the teams in the UK and the Philippines, own our client portfolio

and the relationships across it, and make sure every client gets an accurate, on-time service

from one joined-up team. You will report to the COO and sit on the Senior Leadership Team.

You will run Client Services as a business in its own right. The heads of Accounts, Payroll and

Statutory & Tax run their departments, and you lead them as one service. You set the operating

plan with them, hold them to their delivery and margin targets, and decide where capacity,

people and investment go. You are accountable for Client Services being profitable, for hitting

the margin target on every service and improving on it year on year, and for building a delivery

model that scales as automation and AI change how the work gets done.

You will have run a high-volume, transactional service operation, in professional services,

outsourced or shared services, or a contact centre. Ideally that was in a growing business

where you had to build some of the process and infrastructure yourself. Hospitality experience

is not needed, as long as you buy into the fact that our clients are hospitality operators and we

are built around them.

We are partway through a reset. The pace is quick, the CEO is close to the work, and parts of the

operation still need building. If you want to take a service operation and make it consistently

good, and look back in five years at what you built, this is the job.

You are:

• Someone who has run a high-volume, deadline-driven service operation with several

teams and managers underneath you.

• A people leader first. Delivery here is entirely people driven, so you build teams, plan

capacity and hold managers to account, and you get results through them rather than

reviewing the work yourself.

• Disciplined on delivery across many clients at once, with close cycles, deadlines and

quality standards that hold when the team is under pressure.

• Hands on. You are happy close to the front line, comfortable building process where

none exists, and not thrown by a fast pace or a CEO who is close to the work.

• Good with clients. Our clients are founders and owner-operators who buy the person,

and you can earn their trust and keep it when something goes wrong.

• Commercially aware. You understand cost to serve, capacity and utilisation, and you

can spot when a client’s work has drifted outside what they pay for.

• Interested in how work gets done, and in how process change, automation and AI can

take work of people.

• Confident with numbers and credible with a team of accountants. A finance background

helps but is not essential.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Own delivery across Accounts (including AP), Payroll and Statutory & Tax to one

standard: month-end close inside agreed windows, on-time delivery above 95%, payroll

right first time, statutory and tax deadlines met, and error and rework rates held to the

standard set with Quality and Compliance.

• Lead the heads of Accounts, Payroll and Statutory & Tax, and through them the delivery

teams in the UK and the Philippines. Set clear accountability, run regular performance

conversations and build the next layer of managers.

• Be the escalation point for client service issues, so they get resolved within delivery and

stop landing with the CEO.

• Own the client portfolio and the relationships across it at founder and owner level,

including account management, client health and retention, with a target of keeping

more than 90% of clients each year.

• Plan capacity against committed workload and new client onboarding, so the team is

resourced before the work lands.

• Run Client Services as a profitable department. Hit the margin target for each service

and improve on it year on year, through team cost, productivity and the hours spent on

each client.

• Flag where a client’s work has moved outside scope or costs more to serve than the fee

covers, and give the Chief Commercial OFicer and Finance the evidence to reprice or

exit. Pricing and commercial negotiation sit with the Chief Commercial OFicer.

• Make the client journey work end to end, with clean hand-oFs from sales and

onboarding into accounts, AP, payroll and tax, so the client deals with one joined-up

team.

• Standardise how the work is done. Bookkeeping is currently run in too many diFerent

ways across the teams, and you will bring it down to a repeatable model the teams can

run and improve.

• Lead adoption of WS technology (Auto AP, WS Insights, TeamPay and OpsDesk) across

the teams and the client base, working with the Enablement team.

• Sit on the Senior Leadership Team, report delivery, client and margin performance into

the monthly performance review, and own delivery risk jointly with Quality and

Compliance.

Skills and Qualifications:

• A track record of running a multi-team, transactional service operation to deadline.

• Experience in professional services, outsourced or shared services, or a contact centre

environment.

• Evidence of improving quality and productivity through process change, standardisation

or automation.

• Experience leading layered teams, including managers, through change and under

pressure.

• Experience in a growing or mid-sized business where you built process and

infrastructure yourself.

• Experience managing oFshore or multi-location teams is desirable.

• A finance or accountancy background is helpful but not required. Hospitality experience

is not required.

WHAT WE OFFER

• Competitive base salary of £110,000 with 20% performance bonus

• Membership on our Employee Recognition platform YuLife- with numerous free perks

and access to counselling services and training providers

• Ongoing career progression, training and support in gaining nationally recognised

qualifications (including Education Scheme and ACCA Support)

• 30 days holiday entitlement pro rata (including Bank Holidays) with an additional day for

each year of service

• Great pension scheme (Penfold)

• Fun company socials and events

• Flexible hybrid working model (2 days minimum in the office)

• Employee Assistance Programme and coaching for personal and professional

development

• Enhanced parental leave policy (subject to length of service requirements)

• Birthday leave – an additional day of leave to be taken on or around your Birthday

• Mental Health Half Days – celebrating the power of ‘Me Time’

• Annual Pay Reviews and Biannual Appraisals – career progression is everything!

• Perks and benefits on our HR platform Employment Hero

“We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably qualified

persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.”