Forward expands with two new hires
After another successful year and a busy project list, Forward has expanded its team, adding two further deal professionals, Chris Hardy and Josh Greed.
Chris Hardy joins as Debt Advisory Director to lead and expand the firm’s capability in sourcing debt for its clients for growth capital, management buyouts, shareholder restructurings or acquisitions.
Chris has spent nearly 15 years working in both receivables/payables lending, and structured ABL with the likes of Close Brothers, Bank of Ireland, ABN Amro, and Bibby Financial Services. Having led both sales teams, and transactions over a number of years, Chris always had a passion for a collaborative approach, eventually leading him into the Advisory world as a Partner with RSM in 2017. Chris continues to support his clients with transitional debt finance for M&A, growth, partial/full exit, working capital, and capex.
Outside of work, Chris loves spending time with his family and dog. He also enjoys all forms of sport, with rugby league (Wigan Warriors) and golf being particular favourites.
Josh joins Forward as a Corporate Finance Associate. After completing his accounting and financial management degree at the University of Sheffield, Josh went on to complete his ACA whilst working for BDO UK and Price Bailey. Moving into corporate finance, Josh is looking to put his love for company analysis into use and gain new knowledge into structuring deals, and supporting clients to achieve their goals.
Outside of work, Josh can usually be found in the kitchen or in front of a BBQ cooking cuisine from around the world. He also enjoys spending his time watching basketball and going for walks in nature with his partner and two young children.
Chris Hardy commented “Debt advisory and M&A are very complementary services. Combining my skills and experience with those of Sarah and Rob, and working alongside the excellent team they have built, will allow us to offer more services to our clients throughout their growth journey. It is an exciting opportunity.”
Josh Greed commented “It felt like the right time to move on from audit to take on a new challenge. A lot of my skills are transferable, but working with clients on transactions will offer me new challenges to learn and develop. I am looking forward to joining the journey that Rob, Sarah and the team are on.”
Sarah Moores, Forward Corporate Finance Director commented “Adding Chris and Josh into the team gives us both more breadth to the services we can offer our clients, and more depth within our team. This allows us to grow while still providing the hands on support for our clients throughout their transactions.”
Rob Dukelow-Smith, Forward Corporate Finance Director added “Chris and Josh bring us up to a team of eight. Since we set up Forward in 2017, we have grown steadily, focusing on maintaining our high standards, working on a small number of transactions each year to ensure our high quality is maintained for our clients.”