Meet The Nova Business Professionals Team
Established in 2002, with offices in the flourishing suburb of Hamilton, Nova Business Professionals offers Business, Superannuation & Taxation Advice, and services to business clients and individuals throughout Newcastle, the Hunter, and across NSW.
At Nova BP we believe that success is built on integrity and trust, a trust that is built on personal relationships.
All our team is not only trained professionals with the knowledge and understanding to solve business problems; but they’re also excellent communicators, who know how to explain what can often be complex financial issues.
We believe that it’s important for us is to empower our clients, whether through mentoring, training, or online support.
We pride ourselves on delivering a fast, personal, and affordable service.
Whether that is helping you to start up your own business, grow or expand an existing business, planning for your retirement or effectively managing your taxation; our team is just a phone call away.
We understand that whether you’re planning for your retirement or seeking business support or tax advice, you need an accountant or advisor to possess a broad range of general business skills to be of any real value to you.
We are genuinely interested in our client’s welfare and we strive to achieve the best outcomes possible! Our values inform our practice and all our professional staff demonstrates their commitment to achieving our client’s optimum outcome through these values informing our practice. In a word NovaBP genuinely cares.
So if you’re looking for our kind of caring accountant, financial planner or business advisor visit us at 5 Hudson Street( just off Beaumont) in Hamilton, the first coffee is on us!
Our Values for Client Success
We recently decided to introduce specific measures of our own performance against benchmarks based on the values at the head of this page:
Efficiency and Effectiveness: Our measure for Efficiency & Effectiveness was perhaps the easiest to benchmark we’ve always measured our responsiveness and had a thorough understanding of what clients expected: How long does it take us to respond to a query? how long do we let the phones ring before answering? How long does it take to process tax returns? We’re tracking our performance across the entire NovaBP operation to continuously improve our performance in this way.
Integrity and Trust: Performance in these qualities is extremely hard to measure, Scott Read, the founder of NovaBP who has a lifetime interest in sailing. Put’s it this way when you’re in one of those “all hands on deck” situations you need to just know that people know their job and have not just the capability but also the commitment to just do the right thing. Measuring how often we do the right thing turned out to be relatively easier. Generally, when we get it right our clients tell us. Similarly, as you’d expect if we get it wrong, we hear about it.
Insight and Perspective: Our measure for qualities of insight and perspective was inherently the most challenging, however, we’ve come to realise that it’s fundamentally at the core of what we do as accountants and financial managers. We’ve come to understand that the numbers have meaning, they represent actually circumstances and events in the real world that are critical to our clients business and financial interests.
Caring: Our measure for caring was tricky to quantify, what demonstrated a value so contingent on emotional intelligence. We decided that going beyond the routine and really knowing our clients as people not just as their business identities mattered. The personal touch.
- Effectiveness & Efficiency 93%
- Insight & Perspective 73%
- Trust & Integrity 80%
- Customer Satisfaction & Retention 97%
Scott Read
Accountant / Financial Advisor
Scott Read (Director) founded Nova Business Professionals in late 2002 and has worked with hundreds of Newcastle and Hunter based businesses specializing in financial planning, taxation & business mentoring.
Scott has over twenty five years investment experience and recently obtained his AFSL (Australian Financial Services License) to provide clients with independent advice
He is an authorized representative of SMSF Advisors Network Pty Ltd and in order to help clients to map out a pathway to their retirement.
Scott has developed the NovaBP business planning software, which provides a financial and marketing template that has now been used by thousands of small business clients to chart their business growth and development.
The program uses a fully automated spreadsheet to make the business planning as easy as possible for students and small business owners.
Scott holds a Bachelor of Arts from Macquarie University, Sydney – majoring Accounting & Economics.
He has a Diploma in Financial Planning – from the International Institute of Technology and a Certificate IV Workplace Assessment and Training.
He is Treasurer of the Kyegu Relief Fund Incorporated which was a disaster relief fund established to support victims of the 2010 earthquake in Tibet.
Scott is a Member of the Association of Management and Taxation Accountants (ATMA), an Authorized Representative of SMSF Advisors Network Pty Ltd (SAN) and a Registered Tax Agent.
Scott has also qualifications in Somatic Psychotherapy. He keeps busy maintaining a 40 acre property in Mandalong. He is a keen bee keeper, enjoys sailing and follows AFL football’s Sydney Swans.
Ashleigh Cook
Accountant/ Office Manager
Ashleigh Cook joined Nova Business Professionals in 2008 and is now a co-director of the company.
Ashleigh manages all of our clients’ Self-Managed Super Funds (SMSF’s) which include administrative and superannuation support for almost forty clients, as well as all administrative and end-of-year support for our Company and Trust structures.
Ash also oversees the entire bookkeeping function for NovaBP including about thirty regular business clients with colleague Tania.
Ash is accredited in the Xero software and loves working with various businesses in the Hunter such as wholesale, retail, hairdressing, cafes, earthmoving, construction, and FMCG.
She has studied Small Business Management, Cert IV Bookkeeping, and has her Diploma in Accounting. She will complete her Tax Agent Registrations by June 2021 and become a nationally recognized Registered Tax Agent for the following year. Ashleigh is also a certified Personal Trainer & Group Fitness Instructor, however, she enjoys fitness as a hobby rather than a career.
When she’s not managing our Hamilton office, Ashleigh is spending time with her two children (Hadley & Darcy) at the beach or adventuring up the mid-North coast with her husband. Ashleigh would one day like to learn how to surf, but for now enjoys fitness, fun runs, and performing with her local dance group.
Tania Smith
Bookkeeper
Tania Smith joined Nova Business Professionals in July 2019 and specializes in the administration and bookkeeping for all of our small business clients, as well as the administration of our Hamilton Office. You may have recognized from her accent, Tania was born in New Zealand and now resides in Australia with her husband and three beautiful children.
Tania has been in the Bookkeeping/ Administration field since 2016 and prior to this was in the Travel industry. Tania handles Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Payroll, and ASIC Annual Reviews for NovaBP as well as our many other small business clients. She completed her Certificate IV in Bookkeeping in 2015 and has been working with clients from many different sectors throughout the Hunter on both MYOB and Xero Accounting platforms.
Tania has become a Certified Xero Advisor and is hoping to start studying her Diploma in Accounting and Registered Tax Agent course within the next 12 months.
Tania is passionate about all things Bookkeeping, spending time on the lake with her three children (Isla, Liam & James) … and Coffee!
Brenda Read
Business Consultant
Brenda Read joined Nova Business Professionals in 2014. She has strong accounting and general management experience across a diverse range of businesses. As a business advisor for NovaBP and elsewhere, she has driven change and growth through a range of management roles and consulting projects within large companies through to regional micro businesses.
Her real strength lies in utilizing her accounting and management experience to facilitate and support change within organizations. This is backed by her extensive experience in applying both qualitative and quantitative international benchmarking tools.
Brenda holds a Bachelor of Business, Accounting Major with International Marketing from the University Of Technology Sydney.
She has trained in Partnership Broking Alliance; Winning Measures Financial Benchmarking; Root Cause Analysis Certificate; Business Process Modelling and Probe Microscope International Benchmarking (UK).
In 2007, Brenda was awarded Telstra NSW Business Woman of the Year in the Community Government category for her role as General Manager in recovering and steering the Hunter Business Centre through five subsequent years of high growth.
Brenda has three sons, two dogs, a cat, and two beautiful horses.
My wife and I have been self employed for the last 25 years. For most of that time Scott Read and the Nova Business Professionals have been there; not only to provide excellent support with routine financial matters like taxation and business reporting, but their team has also guided us through the challenges, changes in the business environment and the evolution of both our businesses. They helped us to establish our self managed super fund, set up our business structures and supported us to grow and become more confident and secure in our financial affairs. Now, approaching retirement, we know that Nova has the capability to help us to navigate into our rapidly changing economic future.