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Internationally experienced Finance Director with a strong commercial focus and particular expertise in the travel and related sectors
Nigel Day is an internationally experienced, CIMA-qualified Finance Director with nearly 30 years of success leading finance functions across multinational corporations, SMEs, and startups.
With a strong commercial focus and deep sector expertise in travel, airlines, hospitality, and leisure, Nigel has worked with iconic brands like British Airways, Sandals Resorts, Nuffield Health, and Apple Inc.
With almost 30 years’ experience, Nigel Day is a seasoned Finance Director (FD) with extensive experience of leading Finance in everything from multinational corporates to family-owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Commercially driven and results focused, Nigel has achieved standout successes, including:
A 63% reduction in sales and distribution costs (£326 million annually) in the airline sector
A 20% revenue increase over two years in the travel sector
Oversight of capital projects worth over £100 million
He combines the structure of large corporate finance with the agility required by SMEs. In recent years, Nigel has supported smaller businesses in stabilising and regrowing after the pandemic, and mentored startups through financial planning and business execution.
One of Nigel’s great strengths is that as an FD who has been entrusted in the past with many senior roles that go beyond Finance, there isn’t much, strategically, commercially or operationally, he hasn’t dealt with. He’s as at home analysing financial performance and articulating it to Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), as he is reducing costs, driving revenue uplift programmes, tackling a refurbishment project, or orchestrating a rapid call centre relocation.
“It’s often about stepping in and lending a helping hand to solve a problem or meet a challenge,” he says.
Nigel values long-term relationship building. He creates high-performing Finance teams, mentors’ individuals, and ensures financial insight is understood at every level — from boardroom to front desk — helping businesses define and achieve what success looks like.
CIMA-qualified, Nigel brings a wealth of experience to his EFM role as an outsourced Finance Director, covering key skills, competencies, and achievements including:
Bottom-line delivery: Reducing costs, driving efficiencies, and boosting revenue (e.g. through ecommerce strategies and pricing changes) to support business growth.
Alignment of Finance with commercial objectives: setting and enforcing KPIs to ensure sales and marketing activities deliver against the financial plan to fund agreed commercial goals.
Clarity of reporting and insight: deployment, overhaul, and improvement of reporting structures to drive transparency of performance and highlight risks, costs, opportunities, and potential savings.
Financial communication and engagement: organisation-wide delivery of financial presentations, updates, and forecasts, closely tailored and personalised to each level of audience to maximise understanding and buy-in
Agile but informed decision-making: the ability to assemble all relevant stakeholders in one place to accelerate key decisions and achieve rapid progress, backed by structure, accountability, and governance.
Extensive background in travel, airline, hospitality, and leisure, including work with major brands such as British Airways, Sandals Resorts and Nuffield Health, and businesses at every stage of growth
Proven track record of setting and delivering KPIs in large enterprises, including Apple Inc.
Trusted cross-functional advisor, with senior strategic, commercial and operational experience in executive roles such Senior Chief of Staff
Strong communicator, able to convey financial information clearly and simply to audiences at all levels.
Passionate about partnering with non-Finance teams to support and deliver on commercial objectives.
Travel is Nigel’s passion as well as his professional interest, and in addition to frequent holidays and occasional sabbaticals abroad, he has also lived and worked in the Caribbean and Ireland as well as in the UK.
Nigel enjoys sport, particularly golf and skiing, and is a devotee of fine food and wine.
A CIMA-qualified management accountant, Nigel has held a wide variety of senior roles in businesses ranging from large corporates to family-run SMEs — often with responsibilities extending far beyond the purely financial.
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