The problem-solver

Launching a start-up in the months before a global health crisis may not be everyone’s idea of perfect timing, but for Emma Hinchey and her Adelaide-based business, The CEO Centre, adversity can be an opportunity to discover if you have got what it takes.

As it turns out, Hinchey’s venture, established in July 2019, provided just what the market needed: solutions during times of uncertainty.

Describing herself as ‘change CEO’, Hinchey explains: ‘I’m a fixer, a problem-solver. I don’t like it when things are operating perfectly as there’s not much for me to do.’

Her idea for The CEO Centre was to assemble a team of experienced CEOs who could parachute in to support organisations on a short-term basis. Likely scenarios include while a company is transitioning between CEOs, or to work through an issue in a particular market segment the incumbent CEO may not have time to attend to. Mentoring and C-suite advisory are further business services the company offers.

A project may last for weeks or months, with her team, operating as independent subcontractors, assigned roles relevant to their expertise.

‘Whatever the business problem, our team can address it,’ she says. ‘We send someone in to define the problem, then work with the company’s leadership to devise a solution and action plan.’

Innate talent

A decade after studying applied computing in her home country, Ireland, Hinchey decided to retrain in accounting. While working for the Irish government, she’d shown an innate talent for numbers and, recognising her business acumen, two mentors at the time, Kevin Walzer and the late Michael Hurley, encouraged her to change career.

ACCA appealed because of the speed at which she could qualify – she completed the course at night school in just 15 months.

‘Looking back, I was very glad I’d made that choice,’ she says. ‘I realised ACCA is much more of a business-friendly qualification, compared to others more focused on practice. And I didn’t want to work in practice.’

Off to Oz

After a number of audit and finance roles both in government and the corporate sector, Hinchey, her husband and two young children moved to Australia. Her ACCA qualification provided the immigration pathway to secure the required professional skills visa, and the family relocated in 2011.

Here, she ‘fell into’ roles in community services, aged care and disability support, including at CFO and CEO levels.

‘When the opportunity came to work in the not-for-profit sector, I jumped at it,’ Hinchey says. ‘Having worked through the Global Financial Crisis [of 2008] in Dublin, using finance skills to maintain shareholder profits, it was a different experience to be able to put my commercial skills to use to help fund better services and outcomes for vulnerable people.’

Network tapping

As the idea to start her own business took shape, Hinchey reached out to her networks both in the not-for-profit sector and ACCA (where she’d served as panel representative for South Australia for two years, 2017–19), to assemble the level of specialist expertise that would form The CEO Centre’s core strength.

When Covid arrived months after the launch, the service sectors that Hinchey was mainly targeting needed help.

‘Because of the vulnerability of their clientele, Covid created many complex difficulties for care providers,’ Hinchey explains. ‘My team and I have a deep understanding of these sectors, so we were able to assist organisations with their specific needs.’

Whereas many people struggled to adapt during the pandemic’s long months of lockdowns and social distancing, Hinchey’s change mindset steered her through.

‘I didn’t actually feel disrupted because everything changes all the time,’ she says. ‘As the youngest in a large family [she’s the last of five girls], I have always been exposed to change happening – not just for me, but everyone else around me too.’

Hinchey is a busy woman. In addition to running The CEO Centre, in 2023 she accepted a permanent CFO role at HenderCare, a South Australian provider of disability, aged care and child protection services, and was soon promoted to deputy CEO. She is also the independent chair of three local government audit and risk committees.

Celtic downtime

At the same time, she’s rekindled her love of Irish folk music. Playing the accordion and tin whistle, she is an accomplished singer and musician, and is a member of five different groups performing at pubs, clubs and community and cultural events around Adelaide and further afield.

Celtic Sounds, a group she founded in 2021, is ‘a modern reimagining of traditional Celtic songs told through beautiful harmonies, delivered in modern, spellbinding arrangements by Celtic musicians’. The group performs to sell-out audiences at the Adelaide Fringe, Australia’s largest annual arts festival.

She’s also part of Kelly’s Wayke, a band formed at a friend’s wake, which has just released its second album. And she sings with choral ensemble Gospo Collective, and plays the accordion with the Celtic Music Club and the Adelaide Accordion Orchestra.

It’s a full life, and Hinchey wouldn’t have it any other way.

‘I have an incredibly supportive husband,’ she says. ‘We are both really hard workers and respect that in each other. We both went back to study when we were older – Sean became an architect at 40, and I became an accountant at 30 – taking turns at being the stay-at-home parents.’

For any ACCA member considering starting their own business, Hinchey has two words of advice: ‘Do it!’ She adds: ‘We have the skillset to do this. Anybody with ACCA training is going to be successful, no matter what they do.’