Aberdeen finance boss Craig Hutcheon always believed he had an “entrepreneurial” spirit.
From the age of 15 he started making money working as a kitchen porter in the city’s Palm Court Hotel.
Now 30 years on he’s running professional services advisory firm Hutcheon Mearns with 70 employees and turnover of £8.5m.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, Craig is proud to say it’s never once suffered a loss-making month.
For 45-year-old Craig it’s been a journey of ambition, calculated risk, and an unwavering focus on his goals.
Risk taker
As a teenager Craig started earning his own money and would spend his weekends washing dishes at the Palm Court in Seafield Road.
He said: “I’d go in and wash the dishes as quickly as I could. So I could be sat with my feet out for the rest of the shift.
“I quite enjoyed it in that I was always one of these people that wants to get everything done now so that in the future, you can kind of sit back and relax a bit.
“I still have that kind of mentality today.”
But when he reached 17 and it was time to leave school Craig admits he wasn’t entirely sure where his career would take him.
He left Cults Academy at the end of sixth year and went to Aberdeen University to do a degree in accountancy and management.
He said: “I knew I wanted to do something in business. But I didn’t know exactly what it was.
“I was always good with numbers. And I always had something in me that was quite entrepreneurial.
“There’s probably two sides to that. One, my folks would probably say it was more, you were just a miser as a kid. You just used to try and accumulate things.
“And then the other side was probably developed into a bit of a risk taker.”
Time to become his own boss
At the end of his degree, Craig applied for a job with KPMG and got a phone call the next day offering him an interview.
He started as a audit assistant in 2002 where he spent six years progressing through audit.
Then in 2008 he joined Reservoir Group where he spent five years as group financial controller before they were acquired by AL Oil & Gas.
After spending 16 months there he knew it was time to move on and think about instead becoming his own boss.
Craig said: “I soon learned that I was now getting told what to do. So the whole kind of creativity to a role diminished.
“I knew that wasn’t what I liked. I was getting approaches to potentially go into other businesses as their chief financial officer.
“But I always knew there was going to be a time to set up a business.
“I thought am I going to have the energy to go and set up a business at 42 and really go for it?
“I thought, I’m just going to take the risk now.”
Start of Hutcheon Mearns
In 2015 he launched Hutcheon Mearns with Steven Mearns who he first met at KPMG.
Both men invested £25,000 and started with a handful of staff and an initial focus on finance recruitment and consultancy services.
Turnover in the first year was £340,000 after finding themselves starting from scratch.
Craig said: “We both put £25,000 of our savings into it and committed to a lease.
“We had zero clients, zero candidates and zero processes in the recruitment side of the business.
“We probably went into it thinking it could be a bit of a lifestyle business for us.
“We can make good money for ourselves, do a bit of recruitment while we’re working and it’d be great.
“But a couple of years in, Steve moved after he was approached by one of our clients to join them on a permanent basis.
“I decided I wanted to continue with the business.”
£10m turnover target
Craig, a keen AFC supporter, continued to grow the business and in 2017 was joined by a new partner Adam Maitland, who joined from PWC.
Hutcheon Mearns, which offers accountancy solutions across its three ‘pillars’ of Deals, People and Digital, also has offices in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
It’s looking to add at least another 10 members of staff by the end of this year.
Craig said: “There’s a lot of really successful businesses that start in Aberdeen and never kind of move.
“I guess it’s because of how buoyant Aberdeen’s been in the past, but I was always someone that thought, if I set up a business, I’m going to take it around, at least Scotland, if not further.
“I think it’s something that a lot of people won’t do.
“10 is probably a conservative number for jobs.
“We’re looking to grow the business. We’ll grow a fair bit in Aberdeen, Dundee, and we’ll grow into the central belt further too.”
Hutcheon Mearns firm ‘building a business with good people’
One area Craig is looking to expand their services in is artificial intelligence.
He said: “We’re going to offer a full AI consultancy, offering AI solutions into businesses, and that’ll be offered through our digital pillar.
“That’s a massively growing area. We ask what the problems are and build you AI to fix it.
“We really want to be problem solvers. There was a phase I went through in school that I might become a psychotherapist because I wanted to help people.
“That led me to the recruitment and helping people find jobs.”
Reflecting on the firms 10 year milestone, Craig said: “A lot of it’s down to the quality of the people we’ve been able to attract into the business. You know, we’ve got exceptional people.
“If you go and look at the pedigree of the people we’ve got in the business, it just shows that by building a business with good people, you can kill it.
It has been a remarkable decade for everyone involved with the firm, and we look forward to celebrating with colleagues and clients alike over the coming months.
“We never sit still. We’re looking ahead and redefining our service model to ensure it’s precisely aligned with the future needs and priorities of our clients.
“I’d say we’ve grown as quickly as we should, given that we need to keep the quality level high.”
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