Rachel Hanretty – Mademoiselle Macaron

Speaker: Rachel Hanretty, Owner, Mademoiselle Macaron

Rachel Hanretty: A big thank you to Alan Earsman our CFO, Alan has been amazing. He’s provided the technical, financial, know how and knowledge, helped direct me in the business and the best direction using data that he’s put into a format, we understand, but more than anything he’s there to provide support at any time of day and you couldn’t ask for more.

Rachel Hanretty: A big issue for us at Mademoiselle Macaron was that we were taking in sales and everything looked good. But what that actually meant in terms of production volumes and profit margins was completely unknown. Alan has been able to bring in data from production output and sales input and helped direct us towards a path that makes sense for both avenues.

Rachel Hanretty: The business has benefited from working with a CFO because now we understand the repercussions of any particular focus areas. So if we choose to focus on our B2B clients, we know what that means for the whole business down to profit margins, cost of materials, staffing requirements, cash flow – that all comes together in a way, we just never thought of putting it together before.

Rachel Hanretty: The biggest benefit of having a CFO has probably been to me personally, As the sole founder and CEO of the business, it can be very lonely and I’m not always sure that I know what I’m doing. So to have someone to speak to who’s a sounding board for making decisions is just such a relief and I couldn’t have made a better decision really.

Rachel Hanretty: The number that really matters to me is five million. I want to achieve a turnover of £5 million because I know that the number of women led businesses with a turnover at this level are almost non existent. According to a global entrepreneurship monitoring survey, I want to smash that glass ceiling and in the process do good for everyone.