Shaw Gibbs names Campbell Smith as new finance chief

Shaw Gibbs, the Oxford-headquartered accountancy practice, revealed that Campbell Smith has been appointed its new chief financial officer, succeeding John Williams.

Williams has been with the firm since the £10m investment from Apiary Capital in late 2022 and has seen its revenue grow to over £55m.

He will remain an executive director for the coming months until the next stage of the strategic plan is implemented, said Shaw Gibbs.

"Campbell joining the team will help accelerate the business's growth over the next five years," said CEO Peter O’Connell.

"However, for the past two years since the original investment, John has been an instrumental part of the management team, assisting not only with mergers and acquisitions activity but also in managing the finance team as well as working closely with me on his long-term succession plan."

Campbell qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG in Birmingham before spending 14 years at Vodafone Group in a number of leadership and commercial finance roles.

Most recently, he has been a senior leader of the finance team at Kynetec, an £80m turnover private equity backed data and analytics business in the agriculture and animal health industry.

He has extensive experience of the full private equity life cycle including exits and working with new private equity owners and has also worked on several M&A transactions and integrations.

He said: "I am delighted to join Shaw Gibbs at this important stage of its growth. The business is on an exciting journey, building a people-centric, high-quality accountancy and advisory practice and I am looking forward to being a key part of the management team as we continue to build on the existing platform."

Shaw Gibbs is a top 40 accountancy practice, which provides solutions for entrepreneurial businesses and private individuals in central and southern England.