Team

Ellen Little is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, with over 15 years post qualification experience.  She is also an Associate Member of Corporate Treasury.  Having initially trained with Arthur Andersen, she went on to work at Ernst & Young for nearly ten years.  She has worked for a wide range of clients, within both the private and public sector.  Ellen left Ernst & Young in 2010 to set up Dow Schofield Watts Business Planning (formerly named JL Advisory) with her colleague, Rebecca Judson.

Ellen has led project teams delivering several different service offerings.  She is a highly skilled financial modeller and has built both project finance and business planning models for many clients.  She is fully cognisant of FAST Financial Modelling standards and strongly believes financial models should be transparent, relatable and user friendly above all else.

She is also experienced at performing financial due diligence, whether that be on company financial standings, or for the public sector in relation to grant applications and preparing business cases and business plans.  Throughout her career she has also been responsible for preparing financial accounts for corporate and charitable entities and she understands that focussed financial management information is crucial in any successful operation.

Rebecca Judson is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, with over 15 years post qualification experience.  She initially trained with Arthur Andersen, where she worked on both audit and due diligence assignments.  Following qualification in 2003, she went to work in the Infrastructure Advisory team at Ernst & Young where she was responsible for leading project teams on complex public-private partnership transactions.   Rebecca left Ernst & Young in 2010 to set up Dow Schofield Watts Business Planning (formerly named JL Advisory) with her colleague, Ellen Little.

Rebecca is responsible for the Energy and Green Initiatives workstreams within Dow Schofield Watts Business Planning.  She works closely with clients developing their offerings in the sector and has closed several large projects recently.  Through this work she has been involved in detailed discussions with funders, structuring the financial solutions to align with the project risks and shareholder requirements.

She has significant financial modelling experience and, as well as project modelling, she has developed several business plan models for corporate clients.  Rebecca has also led teams providing due diligence reviews on several grant applications, previously under the Regional Growth Fund initiative and more recently under the Growth Deal programme.

Philippa Billings is a Fellow of  the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales with over 15 years post qualification experience.  Philippa trained at Ernst & Young in the Real Estate and Construction group, moving to the Infrastructure Advisory Group in 2003.  She left Ernst & Young in 2009 due to a family relocation to the United Arab Emirates.  Philippa worked for a variety of organisations including the Institution of Civil Engineers and Ramboll before joining Dow Schofield Watts Business Planning (formerly named JL Advisory) in 2016.  She has worked for a wide range of clients, within both the private and public sector.

Philippa has strong financial modelling skills and is experienced in building project finance, business planning and appraisal models for clients.  She also updates operational financial models for clients in response to bank reporting requirements.

Philippa has experience of several procurement structures and has been financial advisor for projects from business case stage through to financial close.  Philippa has significant experience of preparing and reviewing tender documentation for infrastructure projects and carrying out tender evaluation.  She has also assisted many private sector clients with the preparation of the financial sections of their bids and is experienced in financial due diligence.

Angela joined Dow Schofield Watts Business Planning in 2019.  She has a wide range of financial modelling experience and has worked in Finance for over 20 years both in industry and practice.  Angela has expertise in building and reviewing complex operational and PFI/Infrastructure models

She is a committee member of the European Spreadsheet Risk Interest Group (EuSpRIG) which is one of the leading world authorities for spreadsheet research.

She is an experienced Excel trainer who runs a spreadsheet workshop at Cardiff Metropolitan University each year.  In addition to bespoke Financial Modelling training she is also developing training to support all users of Excel to improve their efficiency and effectiveness

Angela enjoys working with teams of non-modellers and is especially interested in improving the modelling skills of non-technicians.

Lesley qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young in 1996.  She has a wide-ranging career which includes Business Modelling, Management Information, Financial Controller work and running her own accountancy practice and E-commerce business.

She worked in the Business Modelling department at Ernst & Young and has extensive knowledge of Excel, including business planning and forecasting models, management information models and corporate finance models.  She is also experienced in data extraction and analysis.  She worked on large projects including modelling for a management buyout of a large transport company, developing a model to evaluate future cost implications of a unforeseen event in the energy sector running to billions of pounds, and worked with a mainstream building society using an Access database to extract and then clean up millions of rows of data, and then analyse data around customers and mortgages.

Lesley is working as a Senior Manager within the Business Planning team and will be supporting the team in the production of the financial forecasting models and development of business plans and investment cases.

Jo joined Dow Schofield Watts Business Planning (formerly named JL Advisory) in November 2017 as their Business Manager.  She is responsible for the smooth running of the business, managing general client communications and ensuring all organisational resources are in place to allow the client delivery team to operate.  She is also responsible for our social media presence and keeping our website up to date and relevant to our service offerings.

Having worked in various senior business support roles both in the private and public sector, Jo has developed a strong skill set in this area.  She has previously worked for large organisations such as the Coop, Veredus Executive Resourcing and Right Management and has gained experience and built relationships in many client facing roles.  Jo has significant experience in business administration, organisational and co-ordinating roles and has worked closely with a wide range of clients and candidates.

Ruth joined Dow Schofield Watts Business Planning in 2020.  She is a Management Accountant who did her training whilst working for AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in various roles.  Most recently she worked for Houghton PLC as a Finance Manager for the UK arm of the company.

She has a strong background in the preparation of financial accounts for both Management Accounting and Statutory Purposes.  She also has experience in developing budgets and subsequent  reforecast modelling of costs and headcount to drive action where budget is exceeded.

Ryan is the newest member of the team and joined DSW Business Planning in 2022.

Ryan previously worked for Ham Baker Group, where he worked as a Management Accountant and Financial Analyst.  Alongside this he worked closely with the Finance Director and other senior members of the organisation on various projects across the group which ranged from developing strategies for cost saving activities to process development and implementation.