Louise Osselton

It’s an old cliché but my family are my world – from the stress of trying to make it to work on time after getting everyone out of the door in the morning, with the right bags and shoes on the right feet, to the pleasure of reading bed time stories and practising spellings in the evenings, my family continually remind me what is most important when work feels all-consuming and frantic.

I grew up near Oswestry and made the brave move to travel the country to go to university in St Andrews. Since then we have made various relocations across the length and breadth of the country but I was always keen to return to Shropshire to settle roots. We made that move following the arrival of my youngest daughter, to be closer for the support of my family and to bring up both of our girls where I’d grown up.

I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in the audit team of a medium-sized practice in Cambridge and then moved to Scotland to work for a large independent accountancy firm in their Inverness office. I loved living close to the beach, walking in the Highlands and also found time to train as a Chartered Tax Advisor.

We relocated near to Oxford for the birth of my eldest daughter and took on the renovation of our home near Oswestry ready for when we decided to move to Shropshire. I joined an accountancy practice in Oxford, where I spent nearly three years and loved working in the centre of the city with a great team and a very varied client base. We moved again to the beautiful Marlow and I managed to juggle being a full time working mum with a significant commute back up to Oxford each day.

Following our final relocation, at last back to Shropshire, I joined CBSL Accountants as a manager in January 2015 looking for a firm that respected the importance of family and the opportunity to use my organisational skills! In January 2018 I was became a Director. It has certainly been a varied and exciting role since then where I am continually challenged.

Growing up I wanted to become a teacher, although my school career’s advisor very randomly suggested my ideal career would be air traffic control! I spent a year abroad in Austria as part of my degree, teaching English in two schools and travelling at every opportunity throughout Austria and Italy. It was a very challenging year, with no experience and one weekend of training I was expected to teach classes of students English, covering any topic I wanted – I quickly learnt the importance of planning.

However, I was not ready to go into teaching when I left University and I opted for accountancy as I have always enjoyed maths and have an interest in business, but it would also give me plenty of options for a career when we moved. I really enjoy being involved with the training and development of our team and being responsible for coordinating our students’ plans for a variety of qualifications – it makes the job worthwhile seeing our trainees develop and how far they have progressed.

I love travelling and we look forward to getting away to Italy in the summer. We try to take the girls to the seaside at every chance we have.

I am Treasurer and Trustee of a local charity that helps to fund research and provide educational courses at the local NHS trust.

My career progression at a number of firms across the country has enabled me to have a breadth of experience (audit, tax and general practice) to offer our clients, covering a wide range of industries (from construction companies, retailers and manufacturers to charities and schools), group structures (UK and international) and accountancy software and systems. I have consistently had to take on the role of trouble-shooter and am regularly involved with the more specialist assignments such as undertaking internal controls reviews for clients and assisting with complex disclosure requirements.