An astute and innovative leader, Ashley McGuirk is a director at Core Business Accountants. Well known for offering specialised business advice and support for family-owned and small and medium enterprises, Ashley guides business owners to achieve business success and in turn, personal prosperity.
His clients are diverse, operating established businesses in sectors including building and construction, professional services, manufacturing and engineering, property, transport and storage, retail, export and medical companies.
With expertise in business structures, valuation, sales and acquisitions, due diligence, asset protection and business succession, Ashley works with clients to analyse key performance indicators weighing actual against projected outcomes, while offering precise management reporting to support decision making. His approach is underpinned by strategic tax planning.
Logical and structured, Ashley’s advice framework involves consultation, informed recommendations and implementing business strategies for achieving defined outcomes. He has a talent for translating highly technical matters into straight forward language and practical applications.
Extensive multi-disciplinary experience coupled with depth and breadth of knowledge enables Ashley to provide innovative and holistic cross-industry solutions. He freely borrows concepts and insights from one business sector to apply it in another, often with very successful outcomes.
Routinely attending meetings with a blank notebook and an open mind, Ashley encourages clients to bring anything to the table for discussion. Often answering questions with questions, Ashley investigates “why” before “how”.
“Cut the fat – not the muscle” is a regular catchphrase when guiding business owners to test their decision-making and consider alternatives ahead of knee-jerk reactions. His overall aim is to validate business decisions by identifying unnecessary risk and assessing real dollar value.
In addition to the tangible outcomes that include improved cashflow, increased profitability and growth, sale or succession, Ashley’s clients report feeling a sense of empowerment. Armed with clear advice, they feel confident taking the often-challenging actions required to achieve the best outcomes for their business and their own financial wellbeing.
While Ashley has worked in public practice for his entire career, he is a business owner with varied interests. He purchased his first business with a partner while in his mid-twenties – a successful earth moving operation near his home town of Gatton.
Always prepared to question the status quo, Ashley has what he describes as a “healthy discontent for the present”. It’s a mindset that continually searches for improvement and development in his own business as well as those of his clients.
Personally…
Ashley’s bucket list is long. To date he has placed a tick beside some considerable achievements. Among them getting his pilot’s licence, trekking the Himalayas, cycling across Vietnam, touring Toraja in Sulawesi (a remote and very beautiful Indonesian island where a tour guide of 35 years had never met an Australian) and more recently, three months travelling through Asia and Europe with family.
Bali and the Broncos are his other passions. Ashley has visited Bali nearly every year since 2000, but rarely to the tourist destination of Kuta. Along with his family, extended family and friends, he favours Lovina on the north coast. An area he considers the traditional and authentic Bali.
As for the other love of his life, the Broncos, Ashley has twice bought a season’s corporate box (another bucket list item, ticked) as an extra treat for himself, his family and friends to enjoy. Being a diehard league supporter, he hasn’t missed attending a grand final in 10 years.
As for his next bucket list adventure, it’s already planned… sailing a Phinisi through the Raja Ampat Islands in the West Papua province of Indonesia.