Houston Ayre

Houston Ayre

Houston Ayre is a director at Teed Business Continuity, headquartered in Stirling, UK, who provide business continuity management and disaster recovery services worldwide. Having originally started and grown his own Glasgow-based consultancy, Erskine Park, over nearly 10 years, he merged his business with Teed in January 2009. As a director, he’s responsible for financial management and also participates fully in organisational strategy and development.

His career began after graduating, when he took on an audit role for the Scottish government. He became director of finance and information for an NHS trust before joining a US-owned, private-sector healthcare organisation as finance director, honing the skills and experience he would need to found his own company.

As well as serving on the Scottish Regional committee for the IBC, Houston has been on the committee of the members panel for the ACCA Glasgow & West of Scotland and through his joint association has opened up the way for IBC members to gain access to ACCA CPD (continuing professional development) events throughout Scotland. Houston regularly speaks at ACCA CPD events.

‘Being qualified as an ACCA undoubtedly helped me progress in my career, especially for the first 10 years after qualifying,’ says Houston. ‘And that was most definitely the case while I was pursuing a career in mainstream accountancy.’

Because Houston’s career has for some time now encompassed wider business management and consultancy responsibilities, he joined the IBC at the end of 2007 and with the reformation of the Scottish Regional Committee early in 2008, was keen to offer his services and to encourage member development through CPD.

He says that fellow members who are able and willing to devote time would find it worthwhile to participate more actively with IBC activities: ‘The IBC Scotland Committee provide multiple opportunities for engagement; each individual will be different as to the areas of interest they specifically wish to engage with.’

‘My intentions, in developing links with the ACCA in Scotland, are to identify opportunities for CPD events, increase IBC’s exposure to a wider business audience and provide richer networking opportunities to members of both organisations. I’d also like to contribute to broadening the appeal of ACCA to potential and existing members who either have, or are considering, careers outside the mainstream accountancy roles.’