You are here: Careers Home > Professional > Finance > Inside Track
Inside Track
Name: Alex Townson
Job Title: Investment and Financial Analyst
Time at npower: 3 years
I joined npower in a financial reporting role as a Working Capital Accountant. After getting to know that side of the residential business, I decided to move into a role within the Investments team, which is more business facing than many finance roles. In my current position I carry out investment appraisals on both internal and external investments, from performing project value calculations on small projects, through to due diligence on large scale potential acquisitions in combination with our colleagues in Corporate and external advisers.
I love the variety of my job at npower - no two projects are the same. It's been a real learning curve and it's given me a lot of insight into the way the company works. I also really value the high profile of working in the power and energy industry - they're a hot topic in current affairs for a lot of reasons, and I'm actively involved in shaping npower's responses to market conditions.
I deal with various people right across the retail business, and everyone's approachable and willing to go the extra mile. And if you have that can-do attitude, you'll get all the opportunities you need to develop both within and outside your immediate role, from secondments and sports to language lessons and volunteering. You just have to go for it.
Name: Gwilym Jones
Job Title: Commercial Accountant
Time at npower: 6 years
I came to npower straight from university, reconciling customer accounts within credit control. I then moved into Sales for 18 months, before ending up where I really wanted to work in Finance.
In my current role I use information provided by Sales and Pricing to forecast and analyse flexible contracted deals within Corporate Markets. It's a fairly relaxed environment, where people take responsibility for their own work without the need to be micro-managed. That's not to say the senior managers don't make plenty of time for you though, and communication is also pretty good. And the career progression in an organisation as big as npower is great - if you're prepared to put in the effort, you'll be rewarded with interesting and challenging opportunities to experience new areas of the business.
I think the main reason why I'm still here after six years has to be the people. There have been many challenges that the teams I've worked in have had to face over the years, but without the knowledge, experience and support of those people, we wouldn't have been able to overcome them as well as we did.
Kirsty Chapman
Job Title: Retail Reporting Accountant
Time at npower: 6 years
As npower has grown and developed as a company, so have my roles and experiences within Finance. I started out preparing management accounts for a variety of expense functions, moving on to a role analysing Residential revenue and gross margin performance. My current role within the Retail-wide Reporting Team brings all aspects of financial performance together through the preparation and communication of the monthly results to Senior Managers and the Group.
I love the fact that this role puts me in the centre of the action - I get to see how the business is performing, the issues we face and the decisions that are made. The energy sector's extremely complex and it's impossible to feel you know it all, but when I'm explaining the month's results to colleagues or equipping the Finance Director to communicate performance to Group, I appreciate how involved I am.
npower operates in an ever-changing, challenging environment and requires the energy of its people to drive the business forward. In return, npower values its people, supports and encourages our development, is flexible and provides endless opportunities - professionally and personally.
