Ruth Allsopp, Accounts Controller

Having worked originally in administration roles, Ruth then trained as a bookkeeper and worked with an accountancy firm in Leicester, providing bookkeeping and payroll services for local companies including golf clubs, factories and public houses.

Ruth relocated to Berkshire in 2000 and worked as an Accounts Administrator for Black Box Network Services, a worldwide provider of network infrastructure services and products. Her role here encompassed all aspects of the financial function as well as assisting with the administration of the company’s car and van fleet.

In 2004, Ruth joined Secure Systems in Newbury, a company which specialises in commercial and domestic electrical and security installations. Ruth’s responsibilities included purchase, sales, cash book and job costing functions, as well as processing the weekly and monthly payrolls.

Ruth joined B & M in October 2007 as Accounts Controller where she is now responsible for maintaining the payroll function for B & M staff, ensuring prompt issuing and payment of invoices, maintaining regular contact with B & M specialists, customers and suppliers and for performing credit control.

Ruth has re-homed two dogs - a greyhound who didn’t want to work for a living and a border collie. Ruth’s dogs enjoy the same long walks that she does and while they’re recovering, Ruth enjoys good food and wine and generally socialising with her family and friends.

Claire Brennan, Financial Controller

Claire joined B & M in May 2007 as Financial Controller to oversee the day-to-day running of the Accounts department. She started her career eighteen years ago working with Deloitte Haskins & Sells (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers) as an Auditor.

In 1991, Claire joined Piper Trust where she worked with two of their retail ventures, Postcard (a small group of card shops), and Pitcher & Piano (a national bar chain). She spent a total of nine years with Pitcher & Piano where she was instrumental in their fast-track expansion programme. During her time with the company she studied both AAT and ACCA, and obtained a Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Certificate in Wine.

In 2000, Claire moved to Tootsies Restaurants where she developed both an accounts team and financial systems, neither of which existed before. During her time at Tootsies, the company expanded from having eight sites to thirty.

Outside work, Claire likes to travel when given the opportunity. Following her interest in wine she has travelled extensively visiting vineyards as far as the Casablanca Valley in Chile and Montana Valley in Australia. She is also a keen sailor and completed her Day Skipper four years ago, although she has not had much opportunity to pursue this since having her baby son last year.

Penny Chalk, HR Administrator

Penny joined B & M in March 2008 after spending three years in the property industry, specialising in the lettings market.

After studying in Somerset, Penny moved to the United States to gain experience in administration and working abroad at a company that specialised in educational tours. There, she was responsible for creating tour itineraries, updating the company website and office procedures.

On her return to England Penny continued to work in the travel industry and took the position of Foreign Exchange Assistant in a travel agency. Here, she was responsible for the running of the Bureau de Change dealing with currencies, banking procedures, security and meeting sales targets. Within the office she also had the additional role of Ski and Snowboard specialist due to her knowledge of various resorts and conditions.

Penny later entered the property industry as a Lettings Negotiator in and surrounding the area of Portsmouth. Whilst working in this role she gained her certificate from ARLA who regulate and test negotiators in the residential lettings industry. She appeared on the region’s list for high flyers regularly and her office also went on to win numerous awards for meeting and exceeding their sales targets.

Penny moved to the Basingstoke area in early 2008 to pursue a career in administration and took the position of HR administrator at B & M, where she provides support to the Account Managers.

For the past few years Penny has been spending every opportunity she gets exploring the world, trying to fit miniature gap years into her holidays and finding paths untraveled. In the last year she managed to visit Virginia twice, Spain, Bruges, Southern Africa and Bulgaria, completing her snowboarding intermediate class. When she is at home she spends time watching movies, particularly pre 1950’s cinema and French and German modern films, or enjoying a good book.

Samantha Cruickshank, Account Manager

Samantha joined B & M in 2007 as Account Manager after spending three years in the telecommunications industry.

After studying languages at Oxford University, Samantha began her career at IBM where she was trained in the IBM portfolio and completed their sales training programme. This provided a solid basis for understanding customer business drivers and requirements as well as working with dynamic teams for the development of complex business solutions.

After some consideration, Samantha decided that she would like to make better use of her language skills and took a break from IT sales to complete a post-graduate certificate in education in Modern Languages. She went on to teach French and German, benefitting from the training in self-analysis and reflective development required of the modern teacher.

The increasing governmental demands on the teaching profession became too far removed from the core skills of teaching and Samantha left to join Ericsson. Here she consolidated the sales skills which she had developed at IBM and extended them through continued exposure to the commercial environment.

Working as an Account Manager, Samantha is now using her skills to develop B & M’s business in the IT and Telecoms marketplace.

In her spare time, Samantha likes to go carriage driving and walking, which she does in all weathers. She also enjoys ballroom dancing and has taken some of the exams required for bronze standard.

Tracey George-Jones, Account Manager

Tracey joined B & M in April 2008 as an Account Manager having spent 9 years as a Senior Account Manager at Black Box, a worldwide network services company.

After studying Biology at Manchester University, followed by a spell working as a chalet girl in a Swiss ski resort, Tracey began her career at 3M as a sales administrator.

Tracey enjoyed working in a sales environment and moved into her first sales role in 1987 working for a small IBM & Compaq reseller called Combro, which by 1992 had become part of the ICL Fujitsu group. This was an exciting time in the IT industry as technology was moving rapidly and networks were just starting to be implemented in many organisations, leading to a growing demand for computer resellers to provide more specialised services.

Tracey later worked for Computacenter and SCC before moving away from the IT industry to join Sub-Contract UK, a business services company, as contract renewals and customer services manager.  After 5 years in this role Tracey missed the challenges and the pace of the IT industry and moved to Black Box.

In her spare time Tracey enjoys family life, cycling, tennis and working on a major family project to design and construct a garden from what was a large bare patch of earth.

Kevin Gill, Account Manager

Kevin joined B & M in 2006 as Account Manager and brings to the business seven years' experience in the UK IT recruitment market place.

He began his career working with one of the largest IT recruitment organisations in the industry and benefited from its reputation of providing thorough, comprehensive training to its recruitment consultants. This training formed a solid foundation for the need to accurately identify a client�s needs and above all respond quickly and efficiently to their requirements.

Later, Kevin joined Aquent, the largest staffing organisation in America working from a new 'test' office in Reading which was ultimately relocated to London. He spent some time in the US with the main core of the business in Boston MA, Washington DC and Omaha in the mid-West.

The commute to London became onerous and Kevin joined a niche consultancy supplier in Newbury as Recruitment Manager supervising a small team that catered solely for the software industry. With his team he developed the recruitment arm of the business to become the main source of revenue by organic growth and, above all, by providing an unrivalled service to his client base. 

Kevin spends his spare time with his baby son or renovating the Victorian family home. He also enjoys playing golf (badly) and is often shown up by one of his brothers, who is thirteen years his junior!

Seamus Hayes, Account Manager

An IT sales professional with over 30 years' experience within the industry, Seamus has had a number of roles predominately within the services sector.

Seamus began his career with a subsidiary of the Glaxo Group, training staff to use computer systems for such activities as telesales and stock control. In 1984, Seamus began working in sales for Nixdorf Computer (now Siemens-Nixdorf), where he handled accounts in the government and financial sectors.

He later worked in sales management for Omron Systems and Datalect Computer Services, before being appointed European Services Sales Director for Hitachi Imaging Solutions in 1998.

In 2000, Seamus moved to the Gartner Group and then to Allnet Limited (a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless) before joining B & M in July 2004.

Seamus enjoys sport and has played football at a senior amateur level. Nowadays he prefers golf, which he plays with a handicap of 14.

Ed Hopper, Sales Manager

Ed Hopper joined B & M after graduating from Durham University in 1997, since when he has developed wide-ranging expertise in the provision of technical support services and consultancy. His particular specialisation is in providing specialists for projects within the banking and insurance markets, where his knowledge has been instrumental in providing highly experienced specialists for a variety of projects with customers such as the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Abbey and Norwich Union.

Ed is also responsible for helping to develop new business markets for B & M, growing our business to ensure that we build on our thirteen years' experience and continue to provide services that are relevant to our customers in the UK and Europe. Ed has led the development of our business in France - notably with SNCF; in Luxembourg - with Credit Agricole and in the Republic of Ireland where we have worked with organisations such as Allied Irish Banks and the Bank of Ireland. In addition to his responsibilities as Sales Manager, Ed is the B & M Account Manager for five of the UK's 'big six' high street banks and some of the country's largest insurance and retail organisations.

In his leisure time, Ed spends his time freestyle kayaking and represented Great Britain at the 2003 Freestyle World Championships in Graz, Austria. He has also retained a link with his alma mater, providing advice and helping to fundraise for the Durham University Canoe Club.

Matt Jones, HR Manager

Matt Jones joined B & M in February 2008 having worked in human resources and recruitment for several years. Matt's main duties at B & M include managing the HR team, planning and implementing strategies to source specialists and dealing with all internal human resources issues.

Matt's first position in the industry was at Manpower where he worked as a recruitment consultant for over three years. He progressed from ad hoc recruitment in a town centre branch to running Manpower's newly-won Hewlett Packard contract, working on site at HP's Reading and Bracknell premises.

Matt then moved to a more HR focused role, working for a small IT software company. His primary task was to implement the company's HR structure and to grow the company from 30 staff to over 100, which he successfully achieved. Matt dealt with all aspects of HR including ultimately making himself redundant when his work with the company was completed! Matt also managed several newly formed departments on an interim basis including a team of 20 telesales graduates.

He took up a new challenge, managing a recruitment team within a private healthcare company, dealing primarily with a new diagnostics project in the West Midlands. The project quickly grew to over 200 medical and administrative staff, at which time Matt's focus changed from recruitment to employee development, including working on several training modules.

Matt spends his spare time immersing himself in any sport he can find, whether it be watching or taking part - captaining his local football and pool teams and supporting Reading FC.

Paul Smith, Technical Manager

Twenty years ago, Paul realised that he was one of the few technicians working in IT who actually had a qualification in Computer Sciences. Everyone else he met appeared to be a biologist, mathematician, ecologist and in once case, an ex-plumber!

He started work in the north of England with DEC/VAX equipment, providing computer support to staff and students at a college of further education and when the job demanded - occasionally drilling holes in walls. Around two years later he left for the south to work at a research laboratory where he moved into the world of IBM mainframes. Subsequently he worked as a freelance Systems Programmer, designing and setting up mainframe computer systems for a variety of clients throughout Europe and in Australia, predominantly working with MVS, RACF and Assembler.

Paul joined B & M eight years ago as Technical Manager, tasked with designing and installing a new Windows-based computer network. Paul is responsible for advising B & M on technical developments across all IT platforms, providing technical resources to the company and for maintaining and upgrading computer systems and networks.

Paul also has a professional interest in the music business. He is a director of a professional music organisation, works as a live sound engineer and also finds time to run his own recording studio. He has worked with a variety of professional and amateur musicians, poets and voice-over artists.

Amanda Spencer, Account Manager

Account Manager Amanda Spencer began working in IT some 15 years ago, having originally trained as a weaver. She realised that to succeed in any business she needed a better grounding in the commercial world and, after testing the water in a variety of industries, found her true forte in the IT sector.

Her career took off when she began working for a niche value added reseller, providing system utilities and support for DEC PDP-11s, soon moving from an administrative role to providing system support and undertaking installations. The company also grew to encompass provision of Unix systems and Amanda revealed new talents in a more customer-facing role, and began selling the technology, later being appointed a Director of the company.

With the dot com boom, in 2000 she joined an Application Service Provider (ASP) as Strategic Account Manager to develop relationships with the prime vendors. Working closely with Microsoft, Compaq, Cisco and Citrix to build the platform, and with major application software vendors such as CA, Navision and BMC for the product. Amanda later transferred to the distribution arm of the company as a Business Development Manager and subsequently took a position with one of its System Integrator customers selling networked solutions.

Amanda joined B & M as an Account Manager in spring 2004 and now applies her technical knowledge and interpersonal skills looking after customers and specialists alike.

Out of the office, Amanda will jump at any opportunity involving fast cars and racetracks - although it will be hard to beat her current zenith of the quarter mile in 8.5 seconds at the wheel of a dragster. She also continues to work toward her ultimate goal of spending her life underwater as a SCUBA Diving Instructor and helping with marine research and conservation projects in far flung - preferably warm and exotic - locations, having achieved her Master SCUBA Diver Trainer status in 2006. She is even considering getting back to a spot of weaving in the evenings.

Charmaine Ward, HR Administrator

After completing NVQ Levels 2 & 3 in Integrated Care for the Elderly, Charmaine worked as a carer in nursing, residential and rest homes for 10 years. Charmaine showed her adventurous side when she broadened her horizons and embarked on the CLAIT Computer Training Course where she completed levels 1 & 2. This led to the start of a new career as a Warehouse Administrator for a national catering equipment supplier. Charmaine remained with the firm for several years and was promoted to IT Administrator for the Data Processing Department where she provided first-line support to over 300 employees. She also worked closely with the Finance Director and produced monthly sales figures and reports.

Charmaine moved into an administration role for a satellite and communications repair company before joining B & M in May 2007 as an Administrator in the HR team where she provides vital support to the B & M Account Managers.

Charmaine and her husband are registered Kennel Club dog breeders and together with their two children, the family work alongside the RSPCA in temporarily fostering and re-homing of stray or neglected dogs back into loving and caring homes. Charmaine has two Old English Sheep dogs of her own and enjoys taking them for long walks in the countryside.

Sarah Yandle, HR Administrator

Following the completion of her BA in Business Administration at the University of Glamorgan, Sarah began her career as Payroll Assistant for a Social Services division in South Wales. She subsequently moved into a support role for the Children�s Service Department.

Sarah relocated to Hampshire and joined B & M in 2003 as HR Administrator and has developed an expertise in identifying suitable specialists for our customer requirements. Sarah has succeeded in defining relationships with our specialists and has helped to tailor how B & M focuses its attention to meet the needs of our specialists. Sarah is also responsible for delivering valuable and essential administrative support to our internal Account Managers, thus helping to increase our core business productivity.

In her spare time, Sarah can be found visiting family and friends and cycling in the Welsh valleys.