_{Ash McDowell}

Ash, tell us about your career history and expertise

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I'm a qualified management accountant, and the thing I love most about finance is how transferable it is. I've worked across an eclectic range of businesses: I started out at a multi-billion dollar conglomerate and gradually worked my way down the size scale from there. Along the way I've worked with companies manufacturing firemen's uniforms, distributing LED lighting and selling white goods.

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What that breadth has given me is exposure to all sorts of financial challenges, and a very commercial way of thinking about them. Management accounting is distinct from financial accounting in that it's less about compliance and reporting, and more about understanding why the numbers matter, and how to use them to move a business forward. I'd describe myself as a jack of all trades, but for a business like Culture Shift, that's exactly what's needed. My job is to translate what the numbers are telling us into decisions that actually make a difference.

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What first attracted you to Culture Shift?

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As my career has progressed, I've felt more and more strongly that I want to work for something I actually believe in. My previous roles gave me a taste of what it felt like to care about the work beyond the spreadsheet.

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But when I was introduced to Culture Shift and spoke with Gemma, something clicked on day one. The mission wasn't just a line on a website, it ran through everything they said and did. When I heard about the technology they'd built, and how it was helping people speak up after experiencing harmful behaviour, it resonated with me personally as well as professionally. And on top of that, Culture Shift was a business that was clearly ready to grow but needed someone to help it do that sustainably. That combination, genuine purpose and a real commercial challenge, was exactly what I'd been looking for.

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What does it mean to be Finance Director at Culture Shift?

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Culture Shift is a deeply mission-driven business, that's one of the things that makes it special, but my job is to make sure that mission stays fundable. You can't change cultures, support survivors, or build brilliant technology if you've run out of money. So in a lot of ways I'm the realist in the room: asking how we make this sustainable, where the commercial sense is, how we keep the lights on while everyone else does the inspiring work.

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I take enormous pride in the work the rest of the team does, precisely because I know that a secure financial foundation is what makes it possible. Without someone holding that line, the purpose everyone's driving towards doesn't get achieved. So I think of myself as the person in the background, quietly keeping things steady, so that everyone else can go out and make the difference they came here to make.

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What do you find most interesting about the tech-for-good space?

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I think people still sometimes see "tech" and "for good" as mutually exclusive, like technology belongs to one world and purpose-driven work belongs to another. But that framing is increasingly outdated. Technology is the infrastructure that lets good people do their jobs properly, at scale, in ways that weren't possible before.

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The interesting tension, and it's one I think about a lot in my role, is the commercial reality that sits underneath it. If we aren't commercially sustainable, we can't keep building, improving, or supporting the work our customers rely on us for.

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What does the future look like at Culture Shift, and what are you most excited about?

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The thing that excites me most is the idea that Culture Shift becomes an answer for everyone, not just the people who already feel comfortable using a particular type of reporting tool, but anyone, regardless of how they process things or what feels safe to them. We've always been about breaking down barriers to speaking up, and I think the next chapter is about expanding how we do that. Different people need different routes in. The more we can meet people where they are, the more impact we'll have.

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If we can get to a point where someone, whatever they're going through, however much trust they have in the system - looks at what Culture Shift offers and thinks yes, that's how I'd want to do this - that's the goal. It's ambitious, but it's the right thing to be working towards.

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