Hayley Davies is the winner of the Business Leader award sponsored by Leadership & Management Wales
An employee at JCP Solicitors in Swansea for more than 20 years, Ms Davies started out as a young mother of two with virtually no qualifications.
Juggling her studies while working full time and raising a young family, she worked her way up from the role of evening typist via the accounts department, becoming the company’s director of finance and operations in 2002 and its chief executive officer in 2012.
Under her they’ve become one of Wales’ largest independent law firms.
“From 2002 I have been responsible for not just the financial management of the business but also ensuring that we had the right people, processes and technology and that we were operating out of the most appropriate locations to enable us to become one of Wales’ largest independent law firms.
As a result of the clear vision and business strategy that I have devised and implemented alongside my fellow partners, the business has continued to grow and achieve sustainable profits over the last five years which have been challenging times for all businesses.
My biggest achievement came in 2008. At that point, the business was heavily reliant on the property market. When the market dropped that year, the business was at risk of being unsustainable and facing redundancies. I saw the opportunity to have an impact on the business so I seized it and devised a three year strategy to remodel the business. We decided to offer quality and specialist services produced in an efficient manner, at a price our clients would expect to pay.
The result of these changes enabled us to provide our staff with a secure future at JCP. It wasn’t all about making profit for the partners, it was ensuring that we had a secure future and wouldn’t be faced with redundancies when there were peaks and troughs in the market.”
Category sponsored by Leadership & Management Wales:
