RISING STAR RAISING A GLASS How exam fears didn’t dampen one credit manager’s rise to the top BY MELANIE YORK DARREN Whitmarsh MCICM left school in the 1990s when he was 16 and, unsure of what he wanted to do, fell into a Youth Training Scheme as an assistant accountant at a photocopying company. He was on just £17.50 a week – and looking back today, he laughs at how he survived on such meagre pickings. He’s come a long way. When he started in credit control, he immediately discovered he really enjoyed talking to customers and collecting payments – even if it meant using a typewriter to write letters. That was a long time ago, and the world was very different but, it was already changing. By the early 2000’s he began hearing about the Institute of <strong>Credit</strong> <strong>Management</strong> (as it was then) and how completing qualifications could accelerate your career. He also noticed more employers asking about qualifications and becoming more selective. He realised it gave employers insight into a candidate's background in credit control and their understanding of the technical areas, and it was going to change his future employment prospects. This was when Darren’s career-long association with the Chartered Institute began. Vocational Training Today, Darren strongly advocates for his team to take the CICM qualifications. Back then, however, he wasn’t a fan of exams, so he took the vocational training route. After five years of management experience in credit, he applied for the CICM qualification. He used examples of managerial leadership from his career, its impact and how his experience met the criteria they were looking for. When Darren joined Rentokil in around 2008, he managed a large, shared service centre and began running training sessions every week, working with Peter Cartwright FCICM the accredited CICM trainer “Peter and I worked closely together with the 40-strong credit team at Rentokil to develop the CICM Level 3 training package. As we created the training sessions, the team also learnt a great deal, which was really great.” Now, the training is standard practice for every credit team, with the training tailored for different businesses. By 2010, Darren had become a credit manager at Eaton Electrical, which manufactures the components typically found inside a fuse box. The team was split across four sites. As he travelled extensively from the UK, to the global head office in Cleveland, Atlanta, and Dubai, he learnt how things worked in different parts of the business. He and his team set about building new collection tools and systems and became more involved in collection cycles and maximising returns. It helped them grow in knowledge and experience and ultimately win <strong>Credit</strong> Team of the Year at the 2013 British <strong>Credit</strong> Awards. After five years, he was looking for new opportunities to learn and develop. He decided to move to a completely different industry and found a new challenge as a collections manager for Yellow Pages. If anyone needs an introduction, he says, he knows JR Hartley! He gained more global experience when he joined McDonald's to lead the order to cash teams before moving on to Stonegate Pubs. Inhospitable times Formed in 2010, Stonegate Pubs is the largest pub company in the UK. Through 12 major acquisitions, it has grown to over 4,500 sites. Here, going for CICMQ accreditation would prove to be the biggest challenge of Darren’s career. It was a first for the company, and after two years of trying to instigate the CICMQ process internally, COVID threatened to bring it all to a halt. Brave | Curious | Resilient / www.cicm.com / <strong>April</strong> <strong>2024</strong> / PAGE 40
CREDIT MANAGEMENT Brave | Curious | Resilient / www.cicm.com / <strong>April</strong> <strong>2024</strong> / PAGE 41 continues on page 42 >