Chris Hylton, Sambro’s new Chief Financial Advisor has recently joined the company. Find out more about Chris and his future plans for Sambro below…
Name?
Chris Hylton
Job Title?
Chief Financial officer
Tell us about your previous role?
The first half of my career was spent working for a ‘Big 4’ Professional Services firm which provided a huge breadth of experience working with clients in various industries and with different backgrounds. It also gave me a superb grounding in leadership skills which I’ve found useful my whole career. The second half of my career has been in industry, working in primarily commercial finance and finance leadership roles. I worked as Finance Director at TalkTalk in both their Technology function and latterly their consumer business unit, and more recently moved into Retail with N Brown Group as Group Commercial Finance Director before joining Sambro in my new role.
Tell us about your new role at Sambro?
The fundamentals of the role are about managing the financial position and financial actions of the company. This includes key things such as financial governance, analysing financial performance (revenues, profitability, cash flow and maintaining a strong balance sheet) and helping to safeguard company assets. But its more than just the numbers – its about being a strategic partner to our CEO and assisting him and the Leadership team in running the company, setting strategy and working collaboratively towards achieving our goals.
What were your first thoughts of Sambro as a company?
It’s a fantastic toy company, so its in a fun industry where I don’t just see balance sheets and profit & loss accounts all day, I get to see fun, creative products that stimulate the imagination of children (and sometimes grown ups too!). Now that I’ve joined, I can see and feel that sense of fun alongside ambition in the team and across the business.
What are you most looking forward to about working at Sambro?
For me its always about people first. There are loads of great people here with diverse skills and immense creativity, so the chance to work with everyone in the team is hugely exciting.
What are your plans at Sambro?
I believe there is enormous opportunity here, so fundamentally it’s about turning that opportunity into reality. I want to ensure that we set the business up for success, and its on me to work out how the finance team can help that and add value around the business. By making gains in a number of areas we can continue to design and make fantastic products, be even better at delivering for our customers, and driving value into the whole business for our people, customers and shareholders.
