James Foster

Finance Director, Legal & General Growth Partners

2024

Head of Finance, Legal & General Growth Partners

2022 - 2024

Head of Finance

2020 - 2022

ADV is a subsidiary of Legal & General Capital and invests in early stage technology companies and venture capital managers. I have ownership of all finance related activity within ADV.

Transaction and Investment Lead

2017 - 2020

Investment Lead

2016 - 2017

Investment Manager

2015 - 2017

Investing in and supporting ambitious entrepreneurs in Seed stage companies. Working with senior management teams on various aspects of strategy, finance and fundraising. My role and responsibilities included: - Sourcing investment opportunities - Evaluating potential investment opportunities, including market analysis, review of strategic aims, team composition, interrogation of financial forecasts and their underlying assumptions. - Production and presentation of investment recommendation papers to investment committee - Leading successful recommendations through a formal legal transaction and due diligence process to completion. Including the negotiation of key commercial terms with senior management, existing and incoming co-investors. - Participation in Board meetings of portfolio companies - Helping portfolio companies raise further capital, including input into the construction of strategic business plans with accompanying financial forecasts that showcased the commercial potential of an investment.

Finance Manager

2014 - 2015

Insight Analyst

2013 - 2014

As a member of the FP&A team, I worked closely with some of the cost centres and profit centres that form Sage UKI. Creating detailed budgets and forecasts alongside daily and monthly performance reporting to help the business units I partnered with deliver on strategic objectives and business goals. In this commercial role, I worked closely with senior managers that were not finance professionals, helping them gain actionable insight into the performance of their teams and business units to help them deliver upon broader business goals.

Management Accountant

2012 - 2013

I began my finance career at the global accountancy software provider, Sage. My initial roles included accounts receivable, ERP Implementation Project Assistant and member of the management accounts team. These roles allowed me to develop the foundations of my technical skills, gain a thorough understanding of how a large finance team fits together and gain experience working in a fast paced, high volume finance function.

HR Project Assistant

2009 - 2011