Roles Recruited
Chief Financial Officer
At The CFO Practice, Rob is deeply committed to supporting his clients’ diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) objectives as part of the CFO search and finance leadership recruitment process. When MS-RT approached Rob to lead the search for its newly created Chief Financial Officer position, a commitment to improving diversity within its senior leadership team formed an important part of the brief.
MS-RT is a fast-growing British automotive business that designs and manufactures high-performance, custom variants of commercial vehicles. Headquartered in South Wales with a second major facility in the London area, the company employs around 220 people and continues to experience strong growth both in the UK and internationally.
The Situation
MS-RT required a commercially minded CFO who could support the CEO in shaping and executing the company’s strategic growth agenda. As the business entered its next phase of development, the appointment of a senior finance leader with the credibility and experience to operate at board level became a critical priority.
Importantly, the business also saw this CFO recruitment process as an opportunity to strengthen diversity within its senior leadership team in a sector where boardroom representation remains limited. The geographical spread of MS-RT’s operations meant the successful candidate also needed practical access to both sites in South Wales and Essex, with the CFO search therefore focused across the southern half of the UK.
Our Approach
Rob led a bespoke and highly targeted CFO search process designed to identify senior finance leaders with experience operating in high-growth engineering or manufacturing environments, ideally with exposure to M&A activity or previous company sale processes.
Alongside traditional executive search methods, additional emphasis was placed on reaching potential candidates through specialist DEI networks and professional finance leadership communities. This ensured the CFO recruitment process generated the widest possible candidate pool, reflecting a broad range of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.
The longlist was drawn from more than 700 potential candidates identified across a 300-mile radius. The resulting shortlist demonstrated strong gender and ethnic diversity, with the final stages of the process featuring a majority of female CFO candidates.
The successful candidate was an exceptional female CFO with over 15 years’ experience in automotive manufacturing and a proven M&A track record, including involvement in two successful company exits.
The Outcome
Since joining MS-RT in February 2025, the new CFO has already made a significant impact — helping to strengthen strategic decision-making while enhancing financial and operational processes across the business. Her appointment represents an important milestone in MS-RT’s continued growth and its commitment to building a more inclusive senior leadership team.
This case study demonstrates how a focused and inclusive CFO search process can deliver outstanding finance leadership talent while also supporting a client’s wider strategic and diversity objectives.
We had the pleasure of working with Rob from The CFO Practice to fill a senior critical level position within our business. From the outset Rob, demonstrated an exceptional understanding of our needs and bespoke requirements. His dedication to finding us the right candidate was evident in the thorough selection process and in the high calibre shortlisted professionals he provided us. The successful candidate has had a significant positive impact on our team. We would highly recommend using The CFO Practice and couldn’t be more satisfied with the outcome.
Sian Williams, HR Director & Joe Pace, CEO
MS-RT