Susan Rahman
Chartered Accountant & Founder

I’ve been a qualified Chartered Accountant for over 30 years now. I studied a BSc in Physiology and Biochemistry at King’s College London, originally planning to become a doctor or nurse, however, during my degree I changed my mind about the medical world and decided to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a Chartered Accountant.
 
Interestingly, I do think there is a connection between caring for the health of individuals in the medical world and caring for the needs of clients in this accountancy world where I help nurture them as Founders and protect the financial health of their businesses. I get to do hands-on financial care!

After university I went on the ‘milk round’ and applied for accountancy jobs. I talked myself into a trainee role by pretending to be a client for a firm in the City of London, Arram, Berlyn, & Gardner (ABG). They gave me a training contract and I stayed with them for five (absolutely brilliant) years. I worked with businesses from small, one man bands, tailors, taxi drivers to really large multinational companies. There were seven partners who were all friends. It was a lovely, nurturing environment to work in. I learned that excelling in the accountancy business was about being interested in people and being driven to help people do well in life.

I then left to start and run my own business. The partners at my previous employer had kindly introduced me to some potential clients and I set about working super hard (in my back bedroom!) to support those clients and help their businesses grow. In 1996, just before I got to a point where I’d grown my own business significantly and was about to take offices in Kensington, my father and his partners at KWSR encouraged me to amalgamate with their already successful practice, at which point I bought into their partnership.

In hindsight, the decision to take them up on their offer was a mixed blessing as I struggled with the old-school processes in my father’s firm. That said, I did learn a lot too and grew hugely as a professional whilst juggling bringing up my family alongside working in a busy role.

My beloved father died 8 years ago and in recent years I’ve become the sole partner of the firm and rebranded it from KWSR as Boodl. The revamp is all about shedding the old skin to freshly reflect our friendly, simple and effective practice and the fact that the business has changed so radically and is now 100% digital with everything being online.

I absolutely love my work and helping grow clients’ ideas with valuable, accessible information, helping them make the best, most informed decisions to scale their businesses.