Continuing our Inspiring Leaders series, we spoke to Craig Forbes, Chief Financial Officer for UKI and Europe at Chubb Fire & Security. Here, Craig shares his Scottish upbringing and love of football, why science and maths steered him into accountancy, how he has travelled globally leading teams on finance integration, and a secret talent for playing rock on his guitar!

I was born and bred in Scotland. My mum is from Glasgow, and my dad, who sadly just passed away, was from Girvan down the west coast. My parents had moved to Lenzie, a small town ten miles north of Glasgow, and that’s where I grew up. My sister is only 15 months younger than me, so the two of us grew up together. Around the time we both started school in 1969, we moved to a larger house in Lenzie, and this is where my mum still lives today. For me, growing up in the 70s was all about football. My dad and I were massive Rangers fans, so we would go to every home game on a Saturday. This was in the good old days, where as a child, you were lifted over the turnstile to save having to pay the steward to get in! If we weren’t going to watch Rangers, we would go and watch other local teams – Rob Roy or Partick Thistle, which is close to Chubb’s Scotland office. Little did I know at the time I would end up working there! My mum and dad hugely encouraged me to try lots of different sports growing up, so whilst I enjoyed watching and playing football, I also played rugby, badminton and cricket. Equally, in the typical Scottish way, I was encouraged to study and work hard. In the early days, I wasn’t very studious, but when I reached Primary 5 and did my exams, something happened that changed this for me. I can remember vividly the teacher asking the person that got the highest score to stand up, and suddenly I heard my name being called. This gave me a real confidence boost and encouraged me to keep achieving at school.

When doing my O-Levels and Highers, I did particularly well at the sciences and maths. My dad was a finance director, but he never steered me to follow him, it was my own decision to study accountancy at university. Glasgow University is world-renowned for its accountancy course – it’s unique as you get taught the numerical side but also the people side, including economics and psychology. I stayed at home and travelled to Uni every day. I was very fortunate that I enjoyed all the topics and got great grades, which put me in good stead to join the industry.

In my last year at Uni, there was a milk round, which was an opportunity to meet all the major accountancy firms – what is now KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and Ernst & Young. You were able to go and meet them on different evenings, and talk to people already working there, as well as the partners and leaders of the firms. I was fortunate enough to get a few offers; one of them was from Thomson McLintock, which my dad encouraged me to accept, as it was considered the best independent accountancy firm in Scotland. I spent three years there and studied long and hard to become a Chartered Accountant of Scotland, which I’m incredibly proud of. At Thomson McLintock, I got the opportunity to work on what they call special projects, where I would help, for example, a law firm operate better from a money perspective. I worked with many different clients; the one I enjoyed the most was a bus builder in Falkirk. When a merger with a more standard accountancy practice was announced, I decided it was time for me to move on – as the people relationship side of the business was the bit I enjoyed the most. This is when I joined Ciba-Geigy, a manufacturing company in Paisley. It was a change working on the manufacturing side, but very satisfying working with all types of people, from engineers to production. I joined at a pivotal time when the leadership team were looking to put better systems in place to take the business to the next level, and I was asked to lead the finance side of a migration to new systems. Following the success of the project, I was asked to work in Manchester with the UK sales team to support the migration there, too – all the time, still doing my day job. Then next came a life-changing opportunity for me when I was asked to manage the system migration for the whole of Europe. I had recently got married, and we’d had our first child – he was about to celebrate his first birthday. I then flew over to Switzerland for my first European meeting, and from there, I supported every major country in Europe, integrating our business into the corporate finance systems that each country had. After a few years, I returned to Glasgow when it was announced that Ciba-Geigy would merge with Sandoz in Switzerland to form three new companies – Novartis, Syngenta and Ciba Specialty Chemicals. It was 1996, and this was the most significant transaction that had ever happened at that time. Then came another life-changing opportunity – I was asked by the Managing Director to replicate the system migration we’d achieved in the UK, Ireland and Europe, but this time globally! At this time, I also had a daughter and the next six years were really a chance of a lifetime. My base was in Basel, Switzerland and from there, I trained people from all around the world – we spent four months designing the global system, processes, data definitions, how we worked with sales and production and how we worked as an overall integrated team. For the next three years, I travelled the world non-stop, going to every major country – my role was very much working with the leadership teams and finance directors. We went from 76 finance teams to 13 worldwide. This later led to me becoming the CFO of Northern Europe, and together with the MD, we ran the £700 million business. When my wife and I decided we wanted to continue schooling our children in England, we returned to the UK, and I commuted to Switzerland. But after a while, it took its toll, so I decided to leave, and this is when I got the opportunity to join Chubb.

What kept us all together through this time of change was skiing – something we enjoyed as a family – and the ex-pat community. All the families were in the same position as us; they were all similar ages with similar scenarios, so that made it easier for the respective partners to integrate and form a little community. Throughout my time travelling, I made sure I never missed a special birthday or wedding anniversary; this was very important to me. When I look back, I see what a massive learning experience I went through. How I went from living in a small town in Scotland to working in England, then Europe, then the rest of the world. For me, a big part of my journey was learning about people – how to build relationships and how to work together to achieve common goals.

I clearly remember the day I joined Chubb. It was 31^st March 2008, and at that time, there were just a handful of people in the Blackburn finance team. Initially, we were just focused on security; most of the credit control, for instance, was in India. So, it was all about integrating Initial and Chubb to form Chubb Security. We did that for a few years and made good progress, but then there was a request that we merge Chubb Fire. This was a major change and saw the business take a huge leap forward. Following the merger, many people joined the Blackburn office, and over the following years, we added monitoring, then Ireland, and then Systems. We were constantly evolving right up to 2015 when we became Chubb UK & Ireland. I became Finance Director for Carrier, Otis and Chubb for 12-18 months, but then I was asked to choose where I would like to focus, and that was an easy decision for me, as Chubb was in my heart.

I think Chubb’s focus on Building Great Leaders is hugely positive for the business.  We now host Leader Labs and Values implementation events – it really shines through that we are a people-centric business. Building Great Leaders is an opportunity open for everyone to improve, whether you are an engineer, in administration, or in sales. It is so important that we give our people the opportunity to develop and grow, as together, we can then improve how we operate and work together as a team and how we work with our customers.

I try to ensure that Chubb is a good place to work and that there are opportunities for people in my team. I’m delighted that so many members of my team have managed to develop their careers. People want to improve and develop, and I try to give them those opportunities.