10 Years of Our Laura!
Our Finance Director, Laura Edwards, Celebrates A Decade At Westwood!
These are mercurial times. It used to be case that once you’d left education and settled into a job, you more or less had a job for life. These days however, it’s less and less commonplace for people to stick at anything for long ad the concept of working at the same place ‘forever’ is almost an alien concept. So we’re very fortunate here at Westwood to have been blessed with our Finance Director, Laura Edwards, who as of today, has been with Westwood for 10 years and is still going from strength to strength.
Laura’s journey started at the tender age of 21. Straight from University, she joined Westwood to take on the role of company accountant. However, in those early days, Chris Melling, Westwood’ as Managing Director, didn’t let her touch the books. Instead, Laura was tasked with every other job in the company, apart from the accounts.
Laura will no doubt acknowledge that this choice caused her no small amount of frustration, but there was a logic to Chris’s decision. In those early days, Laura was exposed to every other facet of the growing company she was working within and when she was finally unleashed upon the accounts, she took on the role having a solid understanding of the meaning behind the numbers she’s been so expertly managing ever since.
A side effect of exposing a fresh faced, mild mannered accounts graduate to the hustle and bustle of the motor trade front-line, is that Laura discovered a talent and a love for the sales side of the business. In fact despite her love of accounts, she was often heard saying “You can’t beat a good sale!”
Laura has long been an indispensable asset to Westwood and in recognition of this, her hard work and her dedication, she was promoted to Finance Director in early 2018, but her influence and authority goes far beyond the finance role thanks to her thorough and complete knowledge of this magnificent business. She leads the accounts department within Westwood and is often found ‘front of house’ leading, mentoring and backing up the sales team and rental team too.
Last year, Laura took maternity leave and was soon blessed with a beautiful daughter Lilly, she’s settled into her new role as a Mother as well as returning to her role at Westwood soon after. Truly an inspiration.
Today, it was with great pleasure and pride that Chris Melling presented Laura with a prestige, diamond encrusted watch, from a well known Swiss brand as a token of his and Westwood’s appreciation, for her dedication, hard work and myriad achievements over her decade working here.
We’ve assembled a collection of photo’s showing Laura through her years here. WIth many well known businesses and famous faces coming to see us, as well as social events externally, Laura has been as much the face of Westwood as Chris Melling himself. See if you can recognise, amongst others, Dave Whelan, Carl Fogarty, Ashley from Coronation Street, numerous players from Wigan Athletic and Wigan Warriors, as well as leaders from some of Wigan’s best know good causes and charities.
Well done Laura, Westwood wouldn’t be the same without you, nor would we be as successful.
