Getting to Know … Hilary O’Dwyer of Titian Consulting

Meet your Virtual CFO. Hilary O’Dwyer is the founder of Titian Consulting, mother of two and a proud Inner Westie.

Hilary is a qualified chartered-accountant who founded Titian Consulting in 2013, with the aim of helping smaller businesses and start-ups to achieve their goals. With vast corporate experience and the use of quality financial tools, Hilary provides a virtual CFO function to collaborate with your business, specialising in strategic financial planning and reporting. Find out how Hilary can help from the inside and give a streamlined tailored framework to help your growing business.

Tell us a little about yourself

I’m originally from Dublin and moved to Sydney from London with my husband nearly 20 years ago and haven’t looked back. We have always lived in the Inner West and are based in Leichhardt with two children in a local school.

What did you do prior to starting your own business?

I’m a qualified chartered accountant and prior to founding Titian, I was the Corporate Reporting Manager at David Jones.

What services do you offer?

Titian offers boutique virtual CFO services for start-ups and growing businesses. I collaborate with my clients to help with smart tool choices to automate and streamline processes, financial strategy, cashflow management and reporting.

What do you love most about your job?

My clients are definitely the best thing about my job! My portfolio includes a diverse range of companies run by passionate people and it’s a genuine pleasure to help them in realising their dreams and ambitions for their businesses. I love the challenges they present and the opportunity to guide and assist them on their various journeys.

How can small businesses benefit from your services and what can someone expect from a consultation?

I bring experience from a large corporate environment with a process-driven approach and apply this along with modern tools to make their financial situation and management as clear and as simple to manage as possible. This allows them to get on with managing what they set out to achieve. An initial consultation involves a Q&A on the nature and status of their business and their key goals and ambitions. The next step is a financial health check in the form of a report; based on a review of existing financial systems e.g. Xero.

Proudest moment since setting up Titian Consulting?

Titian has been operating for almost seven years now and at the five-year mark, when I realised that that I had created a viable, sustainable business was probably the proudest moment.

How do you juggle motherhood with being a CFO?

The beauty of working for myself is that I have flexible hours. The main reason I set up my own business was to gain flexibility for family time. I found that employers only paid lip service to accommodating working parents (really, mums). I used to feel guilty about being a working mum in my corporate role at DJs but have left that behind. I have always made of point of not hiding my family responsibilities from my clients either. This has been very freeing. Otherwise, I find instilling a bit of discipline around time boxes for things help – work, children etc. It’s super important to remember there are two parents in our family and I make sure my husband is doing his bit too!

What steps can small businesses take to lessen the impact of the current Covid-19 crisis?

I recently presented a webinar on this topic for the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce and my key points to the group were: review your cashflow as soon as possible; communicate with your suppliers and customers; seek professional advice and don’t panic!

Favourite places in the Inner West?

Given the current situation, having the Bay Run and open spaces on our doorstep for daily exercise has been a sanity saver. We’ve also been going to Bar Sport on Norton Street for fifteen years now so I suppose that should be on the list :).

What has inspired you recently?

I have loved to see how people and businesses are innovating in response to the current crisis. Great ingenuity and determination to carry on has come through with wine makers producing hand sanitiser; set builders making desks for home offices; retailers accelerating their online offerings; local pubs offering groceries.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored article.

To find out more, visit the Titian Consulting website.

About Author

Anna Jameson

An experienced Digital Producer, mother of two glorious children, passionate Inner Westie and adventure seeker. I also love to spend my time being creative, dabbling with paints and pastels, aspiring to one day exhibit my work within our community. For me, painting and parenthood are very similar – at times messy and unpredictable but ultimately beautiful!

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