Business innovation funding and tax relief specialist GovGrant has appointed a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
Experienced Steve Phillips has joined 80 in-house professionals and associate field experts at the rapidly expanding company. St Albans-based GovGrant has secured millions of pounds in research and development tax credits for small or medium businesses.
Steve, who qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG, has more than 15 years’ experience working in high growth, private equity backed companies in board level roles. Most recently he was CFO at start-up gym chain Digme Fitness and helped to successfully establish the London and Oxford-based brand and capitalise it for future expansion. Other businesses Steve has been involved with include Snow+Rock, Liberation Group, AirSwift and Vue Cinemas.
GovGrant’s chief executive officer Luke Hamm said: “We are delighted to have been able to appoint such an experienced practitioner as Steve.
“His wealth of knowledge across a broad range of issues will be invaluable to clients large and small as we move the company forward. We are very excited about the future.
“It is excellent to welcome such a big-hitter as Steve and it is a further demonstration that the scale of our recent recruitment at a senior level shows no sign of slowing down.”
GovGrant has helped more than 5,000 businesses recover government grants worth more than £160 million in the areas of innovation, intellectual property, and capital allowances since 2001.
Steve said: “I’m delighted to be joining such a well-respected firm as GovGrant. I’m looking forward to sharing my experience with the excellent team and doing my utmost for our many clients.
“GovGrant’s track record in securing available financing for so many SMEs is second-to-none and I will be striving to ensure that business innovation continues to be rewarded to maintain UK plc as a world leader in modernisation.”
University of Nottingham graduate Steve, 42 is married to Philippa and has three children. Outside of work, he is a keen triathlete (he’s currently training for an Ironman) and also enjoys skiing, football and golf.
GovGrant was founded in 2005 as Government Grant & Tax Consultants Ltd (GGTC) as a response to the government introducing R&D tax credits to encourage business innovation the previous year. Three successful businesses evolved as a result of ever-changing legislation bringing new openings – GGTC, Capital Allowance Specialists and Patent Box Consultants. These were all brought under the GovGrant umbrella in 2017.
GovGrant, which boasts a perfect success record in aiding SMEs (average claim £61,000, equating to 33 per cent of the initial R&D spend), can help small or medium sized enterprises with less than 500 employees and either an annual turnover under €100 million or a balance sheet under €86 million.
Larger companies are helped by GovGrant to apply for the Large Company Research & Development Expenditure Credit (RDEC), which from last January offers up to 12 per cent refunds on R&D.
