Spotlight falls on CMM

 

CMM managing director, Graham Allen, recently featured in the Ingenuity Network newsletter. So if you would like to find out more about Graham and hear all about the benefits of being a Network member, read on.  

 

Member spotlight

Since it was established 10 years ago, The Ingenuity Network has grown into a thriving community of over 1800 individuals. Here, we’ll be featuring examples of how some of those individuals have benefited from working with The University of Nottingham. This month our featured member is Graham Allen of Corporate Money Matters.

Graham is Managing Director of Corporate Money Matters, which is a business consultancy and corporate finance brokerage.

Graham Allen has spent most of his working life in financial services, including 36 years running his own businesses, which has given him a resourceful and fiercely independent stance in the industry.

Coming from an engineering background, Graham has always had a keen interest in innovation and has tried to fund it wherever possible. This can be somewhat challenging in the early stages but, once it has been proven that the new technology works and can be of benefit to both the consumer and financier, it can be very fulfilling to be involved in new opportunities.

Corporate Money Matters looks to support businesses throughout their development, whether this relates to the purchase of premises or new equipment, sale or purchase of a company, or restructuring.

The main business focus in recent years has been on renewable energy technologies, including Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs), Biomass CHP, linear generators, and specialist Anaerobic Digestion systems. Their work in this sector has led to a number of successes and has allowed the business to build up an international reputation over the past few years, with clients around Western Europe and beyond.

On his relationship with The Ingenuity Network, Graham said:

“I started attending the Ingenuity Network from the very start and it has provided me personally with a range of benefits, for example:

• being taken out of my comfort zone
• giving me and the business a parallax view, by which I mean providing different perspectives on one object, giving a more rounded approach
• it has assisted me in considering new ways of doing things, for example the Classics Department talking to us about storytelling.

Early in the process I put my hand in the air at an Ingenuity event and said I had a complaint: it was that the network should have started 15 years ago.

Ingenuity has given us access to academics and to areas of research that would previously have been hidden behind closed doors in what I perceived as an unapproachable institution. It is invaluable for providing networking opportunities with other businesses and with university staff and academics. Since joining the Ingenuity Network, our business has benefited from two graduate placements and involvement in an R&D project.

Being a member of the Ingenuity Network has given us a broader perspective as a business and has allowed us to take time out at a convenient time of day to reflect on new ideas and concepts. I would recommend the Network to other business owners as a springboard for new opportunities and ideas.”