Introducing: Carl Sullivan, our CFO and master of the Seven Seas

What’s your background?

I trained and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in Southend. I quickly discovered that I really enjoyed the management accounts side of finance as it gave me a good insight into businesses, how well they were doing, and why.

This lead to me working for some well-known insurance and financial services companies in Financial Analyst, Management Accountant, and Finance Director roles, getting involved in everything from strategic growth and full business transformation to business development and day-to-day operations.
As the CFO, my role involves finance at a strategic level rather than the pure day-to-day level. In the last 8 months, I’ve worked closely with all teams and been involved in a variety of projects to support the business growth strategy. From financial restructuring following the private equity injection to business development and internal operational improvements, its certainly been a busy year.

What’s your role at Ventrica?

I’m currently focusing on a project that aims to enhance our MI reporting and continuous improvement capabilities across all business units as we scale, working closely with our IT Director (Peter Edwards) to utilise suitable tech solutions.
Sailing has been a big part of my life. I’ve taken part in the Fastnet Race and sailed a few dingies. I also got convinced by some friends to take a year out between past jobs to sail around the world with them delivering boats which was great fun. I’m also a Brown belt in Wing Chun Martial Arts.
It’s a tough one but I’d have to invite someone who has done something absolutely totally amazing that you’d have difficulty understanding it. So it would have to be Neil Armstrong.

Who are you outside of Ventrica?

Who would you invite to dinner, dead or alive?

Can you imagine all those years ago when a computer was the size of a house and the power of an average Casio calculator, NASA strapped it to what was a modified missile, put three blokes in a triangular capsule, attached it and shot it at the moon, and all they had to get there and back was this little dodgy round thing that descended and landed on the moon for them to then walk on it (on another planet!), and then they actually managed to take off and come back to Earth in it - that’s just stunning!