Teresa Graham graduated from Newcastle University in 1977. (She was awarded a Fellowship in 2012). She joined the Newcastle upon Tyne office of a Big 4 firm as a student accountant and transferred to the firm’s Department of Privatisation Services in London in 1989. From December 1986 to August 1987, she was seconded to the UK Government’s Enterprise and Deregulation Unit reporting directly to Lord Young, the Secretary of State for Employment and then Trade and Industry. In March 1988 she was appointed to the Government’s Deregulation Advisory Panel for a two year term and served through two decades of administrations. She was first female winner of the “Young Accountant of the Year Award” for 1988 in recognition of her contribution to the small firms sector, her profession and work with Government.
Teresa joined Baker Tilly in 1989 and during her time there she headed up their Business Services Department.
She now works independently focusing on her three passions – strategic advice to ambitious, growing businesses, liberating these businesses from the fetters of red tape and “Head of Parties and Fun” at The Lexi Cinema (www.thelexicinema.co.uk), a social enterprise, digital, boutique cinema in North London covenanting 100% of its profits to a charity in South Africa called The Sustainability Institute Trust (www.sustainabilityinstitute.net). She holds a number of appointments, including non-executive, mentoring and advisory roles in growth businesses and has recently been appointed as a NED to the newly created British Business Bank.
She has recently completed a review on pre-packaged administrations for SoS Cable which was published in June 2014.
With her red tape hat on Teresa stepped down as Deputy Chair of the Government’s Better Regulation Commission (BRC) in 2008 after twenty years of working in this arena. She is currently Chairman of the Administrative Burdens Advisory Board of HMRC and a member of their Office of Tax Simplification and immediate past Chair of the Regulatory Board of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors receiving an honorary membership in recognition of her contribution to the Institution.
Her publications include a major piece of work on litigation and compensation for the Lord Chancellor, an independent review for the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Small Firm’s Loan Guarantee Scheme and a ground breaking study for the Prime Minister, “Less is More”. She was also a member of the Financial Reporting Council Group which produced “Louder Than Words” – a study into the complexity of corporate reporting. She is currently a Patron of Network, a national forum for women in business and Chair of Women of the Year.
In her past she has been the first woman Chairman of the London Society of Chartered Accountants and still advises The Institute of Chartered Accountants’ in England & Wales on SME issues. She is the 2007 Laureate under the ICAEW Award for Outstanding Achievement awarded annually to a member of the Institute who has made an outstanding contribution in any field of endeavour – again the first woman awarded this distinction.
She was also a past member of the Accounting Standards Board’s Committee for Accounting for Smaller Entities (CASE); a past member of the Government’s Ministerial Group on Access Business; past Chairman of the RSA’s Educational Policy Committee; past Governor of Bromley College of Further Education; past member of the Advisory Committee of the Office for National Statistics, a non executive member of the Steering Board of the DTI’s Small Business Service, a member of the DTI’s Small Business Council and a former Director of Business Link London South.
Teresa was awarded a CBE in the 2007 New Years Honours list for public service and an OBE in the 1997 New Years Honours List for services to better regulation and the small firms sector.
