Newbury accountants James Cowper Kreston's managing partner talks about his company's philosophy
Alex Peal admits that he didn’t know what he planned to do once he left university.
But after spotting a job ad in the careers office, he was set on a path that would lead him to become a partner in well-established Newbury firm.
James Cowper Kreston, where Alex is now managing partner, has just celebrated its 100 year anniversary and set up its own foundation to ensure its legacy continues.
Alex grew up in London, in the Dulwich area, and says he “escaped London to go to university in Reading,” where he studied land management.
“Most people who did the [land management] course went into the chartered surveying profession, but that wasn’t why I had done the course in the first place,” he explains.
“I was a bit unsure what to do, as lots of people are when they do school, then university – then they actually have to think of the real world.
“As it happens I saw an advert for James and Cowper as it then was in those days.”
He applied and got the job – that was in 1998 and he has been with the company, through a number of name changes, ever since.
He started as a trainee accountant in the old Bartholomew Street offices and started studying for his chartered accountancy qualifications.
The training programme, which took three years, was a “complete mixture” covering all areas of accountancy from audit to tax and accounts.
Alex – who enjoys running and has entered his first marathon this year - says that he remained with the firm after qualifying because he enjoyed the type of work that he was able to undertake there and the clients they worked with, which included SMEs, charities and not-for-profit organisations, such as academy schools.
He also says he liked the size of the company – there were around 150 people in the business when he started. They now have around 220 staff.
“I didn’t want to be a number on a page,” he adds. “It was the right size [company] for me. I stayed and made my career here.”
A few years after joining James Cowper Kreston, Alex – who was made partner in 2008 - got married and now lives with his wife and two teenage children just outside Swindon.
“After I qualified the firm gave me a lot of different experiences,” he says. “A couple of partners mentored me and I got involved in some really interesting clients and some bigger clients.
“Then in 2005 I moved to Reading to get some more experience and I continued my progression. My promotions came at frequent enough intervals to make me think that I had a future here.
“I joined the firm in 1998 and then made partner 10 years later.”
His role is now split into part client work and part running the firm.
“On the client side I do general practice work; I look after client accounts, their audit if they need it, some fairly general tax advice,” he says.
“My clients are split into two core areas. One is SMEs and owner managed businesses, largely from Berkshire and Oxfordshire, with some down into Hampshire and some in London.
“The other part of my client base is still charities and academy schools. I’m one of the partners who looks after charities, so accounts, charity audits, general financial advice.
“The other side of my role is focused on the firm. We’re a fairly traditional partnership; there’s 22 partners. Myself and Sue [Staunton], who is the other joint managing partner, were elected by the other partners to run the practice on their behalf.
“That can be anything from staff related matters, recruitment – how do we look after staff better? How do we keep staff? How do we make ourselves an attractive place to work, particularly post Covid and the new ways of working.”
The company now has five offices in Newbury, Reading, Oxford, Southampton and London.
Newbury still the largest with 85 staff working there.
Alex says that things have “been good” throughout the Covid pandemic, which hastened change in the way things worked.
“A lot of businesses have been very busy and we’re no different from that,” he adds. “After the first couple of weeks of the first lockdown where we were all adjusting a bit, it’s been fine, because we all had laptops and could log in from anywhere in the world.
“Some of our clients had to change a bit – they had to get things to us in a different way.
“I think Covid probably hastened what would have happened anyway. From our point of view, now we will work with a client however they want us to. We will go out to client offices or meet over Teams. We also have a portal systems that allows clients to upload things to us.
“Covid proved people can work anywhere. There’s always challenges but I think it’s been pretty positive.”
It is a milestone time for the company, which was started in 1922 in Newbury by Mr James and Mr Cowper and has just established the James Cowper Kreston Foundation.
“We used to get our local offices to nominate a charity of the year – but last year we launched our own foundation – the James Cowper Kreston Foundation, which is a charity in its own right, to tie in with our 100 year anniversary,” Alex says.
The foundation is run by staff with the trustees mainly the company partners.
Every year the partners will put money into the foundation and they will also match fund staff’s fundraising efforts too.
The company received 70 applications in the first round of funding and selected five or six local charities to benefit. They have just closed second round and, this time, there were more than 70 applications.
Any applicants must be a local charity and not one of James Cowper Kreston’s clients and the funding must go towards a particular project.
Looking to the future Alex says the company is “committed to staying independent”.
“Change is inevitable but we want to keep our values,” he adds. “Staff are very important to us; our clients are very important to us. We will grow, but grow very sustainably.”
The company strapline is ‘maximise your potential’ and it applies to staff, clients and the partners themselves.
“We have been around for 100 years and I would like to think we will be around for another 100 years,” he adds.
