Victoria FitzGerald ACMA MBA
Founder and Director
Victoria has over 25 years of experience as a professionally qualified accountant with a Masters in Business Administration (MBA). She focuses on getting to know each customer, finding out what’s important and helping leadership teams make crucial decisions.
One of Victoria’s unique strengths is that she’s approachable and friendly and presents financial information in a way that everyone can understand. She frequently gets feedback that people haven’t understood finance ‘until now’. That’s what makes her smile. With these skills, she gets to the root of any situation quickly and helps organisations move ahead with practical recommendations. She’s passionate about making financial planning easy and thrives on helping organisations succeed.
She has provided strategic financial consultancy to an outstanding multi-academy trust in Bristol during a key stage of its growth. She has worked with unique new multi-academy trusts in Wiltshire and Leicester during and after conversion. She has worked with several academy trusts on financial growth strategies.
Victoria is experienced in Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning (ICFP) and was accredited by the Department for Education as Schools Resource Management Advisor (SRMA) in 2019.
She has also delivered financial governance training to boards of multi-academy trusts and to charities in the education sector.
From 2014 to 2015 Victoria was Chair of a multi-academy schools trust in South Gloucestershire, working with the executive leadership team. Her influence and positive challenging style resulted in a significant impact on their organisation’s performance.
Looking back over her career, she started out in the NHS, moved to private industry and then into public and charity sectors. She has held Chief Financial Officer and Finance Director roles in both the commercial and not for profit sectors. Her strategic and operational business experience is drawn from a range sectors including, multi-academy trusts, higher education, independent schools, the arts, manufacturing and aerospace. This diverse experience gives her unique business insights, which proves invaluable to clients.
As a non-executive board member, Victoria uses her extensive business expertise to influence the strategic direction of boards. She is currently a Member of a Bristol multi-academy trust, and a Trustee of both the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and ASDAN.
Outside work Victoria enjoys the theatre, opera, stand up comedy and travelling throughout the US.
What clients say about Victoria
"Victoria supported the early growth of Cathedral Schools Trust and her work was invaluable. Victoria provided financial expertise around growth scenarios supporting our planning and central services structures. She immediately understood what was needed and her support made a huge difference at a critical point for the trust."
Neil Blundell, Executive Principal Cathedral Schools Trust, Bristol
School Resource Management Adviser
Victoria is accredited by the Department of Education as a Schools Resource Management Adviser (SRMA).
CIMA Member in Practice
Briarsmead Limited Directors are registered Members in Practice with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.