Have you met our newest Tax Manager, Jamie Muirhead?
On 1 April 2023, Wilder Coe was delighted to announce Jamie’s new promotion to Tax Manager. Jamie’s role focuses on advising and delivering technical tax support for clients, including individuals, owner-managed businesses, and large corporate groups, ensuring they meet their tax compliance obligations. Jamie also provides tax structuring, due diligence, and transaction support as part of our growing transactions and advice team.
Choosing accountancy
Wilder Coe’s “strong, family vibe” first drew Jamie to join in 2018 and commence a new career in accountancy.
Jamie participated in the firm’s first cohort for the innovative joint ACA/CTA qualification. The three-year programme allows trainees to gain first-hand experience working across audit and tax departments whilst completing their examinations.
However, accountancy was not Jamie’s first career choice. After studying physics and natural sciences at the University of Cambridge, Jamie trained to become a teacher via a PCGE qualification. He spent three years as a fully qualified resident teacher and tennis coach at a boarding school on the south coast, teaching maths to secondary school children.
“I enjoyed teaching; however, I decided it was not where I wanted to spend the rest of my career. In 2018, I started looking at different qualifications that would allow the opportunity to get involved with different businesses,” shares Jamie.
Coming across Wilder Coe’s combined qualification, Jamie saw the opportunity to experience how different businesses operate while understanding business accounting fundamentals. Commencing a 3.5-year training contract that involves 14 ACA and 3 CTA exams, Jamie qualified in 2021 as a Chartered Accountant (ACA) and Chartered Tax Advisor (CTA) and was invited to work permanently in the tax department. In April 2022, Jamie was promoted to Assistant Tax Manager.
“I felt the tax side closer aligns with the commercial issues we were solving for clients. Often it is about problems. Whether we check that organisations are structured efficiently or advise on transactions to troubleshoot all sorts of technical tax aspects, there is a lot of variety and challenge in the daily work.”
Transferring skills
Although his roles have been different, Jamie transferred his experience and skillset as a teacher to help him develop and progress into management positions.
“There is a lot that goes on when you are a teacher, and for any teacher out there managing a class of thirty children daily, it is no easy feat. You are looking after these children and managing their diaries and need to know where they are. These management aspects are very transferable, and resilience is crucial.
Going through the CTA/ACA programme, you must juggle the day-to-day full-time work and meet all the deliverable outcomes on time to manage client expectations, alongside sitting exams. It is a challenging task, so resilience is a fundamental transferable skill.
Learning curves
With these transferable skills in mind, we asked Jamie whether he had any guidance for anyone in a similar position looking to change their career path.
“If you think you can see yourself doing something else long-term, why not try it!
Experience in another field can be valuable. As I have learned more detail about tax, I can add more value to our clients. I have also found my experience training as a chartered accountant and auditor extremely useful in understanding the whole picture, and personally, I believe having a broader context helps deliver more effectively.
In his book, ‘Range’, David Epstein discusses how a broad foundation of knowledge and experiences can help in adapting to new challenges and solving complex problems. He argues that if you can triangulate to view a problem from different angles, you can learn more efficiently, and devise and implement more useful solutions.
So, drawing experiences from diverse backgrounds is valuable, and I encourage people to do it. I see it as a big positive. It can be a steep learning curve at the beginning but, particularly in accountancy, it is a well-trodden path, and you have so much support available.”
People first
After interviewing with Chris Gent and Caryl King five years ago, Jamie’s initial impression was of the supportive development of the staff, and he appreciated that quite a few of the firm’s Partners had trained internally, and was drawn to the commitment to organic growth within the organisation.
“I find my role engaging and challenging. I get to work with diverse clients and industries and spend time with each of our very talented departments.
What I love most about Wilder Coe has got to be the people. As we work in the service industry and offer great service, our main asset as a firm is our people and their specialist expertise.
Working closely with an incredibly knowledgeable tax team, Tax Partners Tim Cook, Pauline Hudd and I look to the future and want to build on our experience going forward, as there is a lot of demand for the specific tax advice we offer. Fundamentally, when we bring our proficiencies together and work harmoniously as a team, we offer the quality of advice and expertise of a much larger firm with a more joined-up and personal approach.
As a relatively small department, I have the opportunity to get more involved in strategic decision-making. It takes a long time to develop detailed tax advice expertise, but I think if we continue to sustainably grow and develop our team, the skies are the limit!”
“I’m particularly proud of how Jamie has developed into this role in the tax department, working with a wide variety of clients and situations,” shares Tim Cook. “We all wish Jamie every success in his new role, and we look forward to continuing the growth of our tax department with Jamie at the helm in his leadership role.”
You can contact him here if you would like to congratulate Jamie on his promotion to Tax Manager or arrange an appointment to discuss your personal and commercial tax matters.
He has a portfolio of clients including non-UK resident company landlords, high net worth individuals, entrepreneurs, self-employed and owner-managed businesses. His support has helped individuals, owner-managed businesses, and large corporate groups utilise tax reliefs to run their businesses efficiently and meet their compliance obligations.
