Dean Craven

Business Planning and Growth Specialist

Dean is a small businessman helping small business to get established and grow. But it hasn’t always been that way.

Having qualified as a Fellow Chartered Management Accountant in the early 1990s he was Chief Accountant for an engineering company in Coventry involved in a Management Buy-Out, helping them to turn around a loss-making division in 18 months. From there he added an MBA and a Programme Management qualification whilst delivering $multi-million strategic projects for the likes of MARS, AT&T, Pirelli, Diageo as well as the NHS and other UK Government bodies.

Dean’s career has taken him around the world and led to periods of living and working in Prague, Warsaw and Vancouver. Dean now calls Queensland in Australia home and has turned his focus to helping entrepreneurs build their businesses – providing mentoring, tutoring and a personal set of tools to small business owners. He tries to fill the gap between their lack of the necessary background in business management but have the creativity, drive and energy to build real businesses from their ideas. He still travels the globe making collaborative connections through his wide range of contacts, providing consulting and mentoring services en-route.

Dean has always viewed sound financial management as a cornerstone of the success of a company, and a springboard for onward growth. He has a way of getting you to think about profit and loss in a more challenging and engaging way. Book-keeping is an essential foundation – but what lies beneath those numbers to help you manage your business more profitably?

As a member of the Queensland Government Mentoring for Growth panel Dean has worked with a number of small businesses to help them focus and get organised for the journey ahead of them, as they grow their businesses. A very recent success has been his work with an innovative mum of three to the point of making her new product design real and will launch her product globally in November 2018. Obtaining $100,000 grant funding plus developing the supply chain, distribution, fulfilment and financial plans were some of the tangible support provided by Dean. Less tangible has been the personal mentoring and support through the various highs and lows of the business founders’ journey.

As an aside, Dean has his own online store specialising in high-end design driven products which keeps his practice and consulting up to date and can share his own war stories with his clients.

FashionCapital welcomes Dean’s masterclass input on business and figures; how to ensure that the cost price is right; understanding direct v indirect costs, cost of goods made, net profit and gross profit and much more vital information that every business needs in order to function and grow.