About us

Brief history

Strathmore was established in 2007 by Jo Holmes and two other colleagues, who between them had many years of experience in general professional practice and saw a niche for a high-quality accounting firm with qualified staff offering a personal service.

Our team believes in providing a proactive support service to all of our clients – a critical aspect of managing your organisation in today’s fast changing business environment.

Our experience

As we are based in the North West of England, it is natural that a considerable number of our clients are similarly located, however, we also act for many clients in other parts of the country.

Our experience covers many different market sectors including hotels and restaurants; construction and engineering, manufacturing and wholesalers; professional firms including architects, chartered surveyors, solicitors, letting agents, and insurance brokers. We also have specialisms in the medical sector and healthcare professionals including doctors and GPs in particular.

Meet the Team

Jo Holmes

Jo Holmes

FCA CTA – Director

Jo is a highly qualified Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor with over twenty years’ experience in accountancy practice. During her final exams to become a Chartered Accountant she was a prize winner, attaining some of the highest results in the country.

Jo was involved in the set-up of Strathmore back in 2007 alongside two longstanding colleagues and has now gone on to take over the day to day running of the practice over the last few years. However her passion still remains being hands on and she is heavily involved and oversees all client relationships.

Since qualifying in 2005, Jo has gained valuable experience with different types of businesses such as professional services, doctors surgeries, retail organisations and manufacturing companies.

She leads our specialised services division for the healthcare sector and GP practices, where her specific experience in these areas greatly assists our clients with the complex accounting and tax issues they regularly face.

Jo is also able to assist clients with the establishment or refinement of their management accounting system and is very experienced with computerised accounts packages in particular Sage 50 but with experience in most mainstream accounting packages including Xero, QuickBooks, KashFlow, Iris and Oasis.

In her spare time Jo likes to spend time with her young daughter and to plan her next Disney holiday!

Josh Woolley

Josh Woolley

BFP ACA – Senior Accountant

Josh joined Strathmore in 2014 as a trainee and subsequently qualified as a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

In his time at Strathmore Josh has gained experience across a wide range of business sectors and is proficient in the preparation of annual accounts and tax returns for SME’s.

Josh has also been instrumental in the implementation of pension automatic enrolment services for our payroll clients and manages the payroll function.

He is a highly competent auditor and combines a keen attention to detail with an enthusiastic and good humoured approach to business engagements which ensures a rewarding and high level audit service for Strathmore’s clients. His main focus is statutory audits of medium sized enterprises, he is however also experienced in performing a number of specialist audits, including SRA Client Money reviews. Josh is heavily involved in all Audit work undertaken by Strathmore Audit.

In his spare time Josh has an interest in all things Space and Astronomy related, he is also in the infancy of learning the Korean language as a commitment for 2022. Josh has a love for football having played the sport for over 20 years, he grew up in Manchester and has a tendency for the colour red so that should tell you all you need to know about his allegiances!

John Holmes

John Holmes

Head of Business Strategy & Development

Having travelled extensively throughout his career John has over thirty years’ experience in business strategy, business development and sales and marketing across a variety of market sectors, both on a national and international basis.

He has developed sales and marketing strategies for major global manufacturing companies, as well as setting up and managing distribution networks in over 70 countries.

Used to working at board level with customers and colleagues, as well as managing teams and projects on a day-to-day basis, John is skilled at assisting organisations to define and deliver business plans, sales and marketing strategies, global distribution strategies, budget planning and control, policy and procedure development and implementation.

More recently John has decided to scale back his activities and settle down in the UK. He has now joined Strathmore to lead our business development as well as to offer support to our clients looking for more strategic guidance on their business operations.