Emma
Lancaster

WHO I HELP

AAB Group.

HOW I HELP

Leading AAB Group. Board Engagement. Driving Growth. Aligning AAB Group. Supporting Leadership. Engaging Stakeholders. Building a High Performing Team.

“THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS THAT EXCITE ME ABOUT AAB GROUP.”

Emma is the Chief Executive of AAB Group. In Emma’s role she is responsible for setting the strategic direction, and shaping AAB for continued growth. She brings her different experiences from a variety of people based businesses to AAB which will help drive the Group through its next phase of growth.

Emma works closely with internal and external stakeholders and importantly, the teams across AAB Group. She truly believes that great people are fundamental to everything AAB does. One of her key areas of focus is driving initiatives to support the teams and deliver great client service.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

“The most satisfying part of my role is being able to make a difference. Seeing the impact we can have on our people, our clients and the business as a whole is hugely rewarding.

To do this effectively can require a fair amount of problem solving, but I enjoy solving problems (the more complex, the better!). For any challenge, issue, or opportunity I try to look at it in a different way, and from lots of different angles. This also involves asking the right questions and I’m good at cutting to the chase to try and solve the challenges around a problem, and at the heart of it, to ultimately find the solution.

I think these skills also contribute towards driving people engagement too, which is critical to any business but particularly one which is on such an incredible growth journey. Setting a clear direction and making sure everyone knows where we’re going is key to this, we want everyone to understand the goals of the Group and how they can play their part in getting us to where we want to be.”

HOW PROFESSIONALS BRING VALUE

“I am a qualified accountant and have held CFO roles previously which gives me a good understanding of what clients look for in some of the services we provide. Sometimes I think there can be a misunderstanding about the value a finance person can bring to an organisation, and that value is so much more than handling the numbers. They can bring clarity to an issue, to the data, to the opportunities, to the risk.

Across the Group we have people from all kinds of backgrounds, working across a multitude of different areas, finance is just one of them. So it’s important to me that we have a clear understanding of our capabilities and what we can do for clients, but importantly who we have delivering those services and what more we can do to support them, our clients and the continued growth of the Group.”

NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR PEOPLE

“I really enjoy getting out and about, visiting our colleagues across all AAB Group locations, spending as much time with them as possible. There is something about seeing our people face to face which helps to get a sense of what it’s like across the different teams, services, and how everything comes together for our clients.

If you have a great team who feel supported and are invested in the journey, they provide a first-class service to our clients (internal and external), they will go above and beyond for them. I believe that if you can achieve this then good things will follow.

A people-centric culture has been created at AAB and it continues to be a core value across the Group; “nothing is more important than our people” after all. It’s something that really attracted me to the Group and will continue to drive us forward and do even more to continue to create opportunities for our team.”

FUTURE FOCUS

“As a national business working with clients across the globe, we need a solid tech infrastructure and a focus on how we can continue to invest to enhance our service delivery and our client experience.

We have a fantastic range of services and incredible teams delivering those services for clients. This coupled with our desire to drive change and innovation puts us in a brilliant position to create great solutions for our clients and ultimately make working and interacting with AAB as seamless as possible.

What is special about AAB is that across every area of the Group we all know that the reason we’ve achieved what we have to date is thanks to our abilities to collaborate as a team and deliver. This is a great business, and there is so much opportunity to drive it to the next level. I am really excited about the future and what we can achieve together.”