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Gabelle LLP: How it all started

31st May 2013
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As this is my inaugural blog, I thought it would be good to give you an idea of how Gabelle came to be.

In October 2010 I left the comfort of a partner position in a top 10 accountancy practice to set up an independent tax consultancy business. 

Over two-and-a-half years later, Gabelle has 14 people and I would like to think that we are making an impact in the tax world!

Deciding to jump ship and leave the comfort of a large accountancy firm to go it alone was always going to be daunting.

The early days were uncertain as I built up a team and went to market with a new, unknown brand and hoped that people would share my enthusiasm.

There was the excitement of starting a firm with a blank canvas, knowing we could establish an independent tax business.

 What I probably hadn’t thought about was the admin and the regulation, dealing with institute requirements and so on.

My mind was more focused on tax and how could Gabelle deliver an excellent support service to accountants.

The origins of our business go back to Williams Jeffrey Barber, three ex-inspectors who set up a tax business to support accountants.

As a trainee, these guys were my tax department; they were the gods of tax I phoned whenever we had a tax problem in the mid-90’s -- whatever it was, they could sort it.

They later merged into Chiltern, who I became head of direct tax for in 2005 and even then, they were still the experts in tax!

 Chiltern was acquired by BDO in 2007 and it was in October 2010 that I decided to leave and set up Gabelle. There was a gap in the market and our accountants missed us!

We had our first all-day Gabelle Tax Conference quite recently, and I realised that the buzz of starting Gabelle over two years ago was still very much there.

 It was great to catch up with clients and contacts. The Gabelle team delivered fantastic tax lectures and as I sat there I realised this is why I took that risk over two years ago.

So there you have it, a brief overview of how I set up my firm. In later blogs, I’ll go into more detail and explore the issues and experiences around setting up.

Blogging isn’t the only thing that’s new to me today. I’m going to be writing about embracing social media in these posts too, as I’ve just set up a Twitter account and I’m looking forward to sharing my insights on that too.  

So far, I have six followers, and I'm following five people - yet to make my first Tweet!

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By redman7
01st Jun 2013 21:41

Thanks
Interesting read, look forward to more :-)

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