KEITH Taylor has seen the full spectrum of businesses.

But it could have been different for the BW Medical Accountants’ managing director.

He hails from a family of engineers; his father previously working at CA Parsons, in Newcastle, which is now part of Siemens, and his brothers following the same lead.

He said: “My father was a successful engineer at Parsons for many years until he retired, and both my brothers became engineers, so my route was clearly different from the start.

“I’d always been strong at maths at school and when I looked to a career in the early 1980s, my abiding impression of the job market was that accountancy seemed a good long-term option.”

In 1981, he began articled training at Spicer and Pegler, in Newcastle, later to become Deloitte, and then moved to BDO Reads and the Channel Islands, where he progressed from audit senior to audit director, with a team of 35.

He said: “I loved Guernsey and it gave me an opportunity to work with the most diverse range of businesses imaginable.

“From one man band newsagents to huge unit trusts; even the local international airport was a client.”

Man management became a central part of his responsibilities, an element he has always enjoyed.

“When you become a manager, 50 per cent of your time is taken up by man management, so you really need to have empathy with your team and enjoy it.

“If you don’t you will struggle”, he said.

“This part needs to come naturally; I don’t believe it can really be taught.

“You see many individuals excel at elements of their job getting elevated to management roles who fail because they cannot make the transition.

“This is something I learned along the way and I’ve been fortunate to have such a varied career path that has put me into contact with so many different types of businesses.

“Learning from other people’s mistakes is a very powerful formula.”

As a successful accountant, Mr Taylor always had his eye on the future, which included a yearning to return to Newcastle.

He said: “As a senior manager I formed a view on how I wanted to progress.

“It always seemed to me that because of the huge sums of money involved with the corporate, big business sectors, often owner-operators could be overlooked in terms of service levels and the general focus.

“This has always been something that motivates me when you know you can help and see an immediate benefit to the client.”

As a result, over the years he made successive career moves that led to him becoming group manager for owner-managed businesses in 2002, at RMT Accountants, in Newcastle.

After six years, he moved across to head of medical services, still at RMT, working exclusively with medical clients.

He said: “My real passion has always been owner-managed businesses and particularly in the medical sector as it’s a challenging environment due to constant change.”

After many years working under the constraints of others, Mr Taylor made the decision to head up a specialist healthcare accountancy firm.

He said: “Peter Waller, a tax specialist who has worked in healthcare accountancy since 1985, and I had often talked about setting up on our own, it was just a question of when.”

In 2013, Mr Taylor, with Mr Waller as his first member of staff, and the financial backing of Blackett Walker Independent Financial Advisers, launched his own niche medical specialist company BW Medical Accountants Limited.

“We just felt the time was right, there have been huge changes taking place in healthcare”, he said.

“The changes in the NHS and GP practices themselves having to transform their financial model have produced a lot of anxiety.

“Standing still to address these changes is not an option; they need to be met head on.”

Since launching in July 2013, BW Medical Accountants has grown to 15 staff and has more than 600 clients, almost 90 of which are GP practices across the North-East, Cumbria, Leicester, Humberside, and Lincolnshire.

Mr Taylor added: “Our business offers experienced specialist knowledge of the healthcare sector and our close working relationship with our sister company Blackett Walker has unrivalled specialist knowledge of the NHS, in particular the NHS Pension Scheme.

“In the position we are now, and with our ability to recruit ahead of the game, we should have more than 100 practices on board by the beginning of 2016.”