New head of payroll at accountancy firm

EXPANDING Hampshire accountancy firm HWB has appointed an accomplished new payroll manager.

Raquel Silva, who has 20 years’ national and international payroll experience, heads a team of five looking after almost 300 clients at the Southampton-based accountants and business advisers.

She joined from Gosport & Southampton-based education provider Lighthouse Learning Trust, where she spent four years.

Raquel said: “I was looking for a new challenge, some career progression and the opportunity to join HWB was too good to miss. It is a lovely organisation with welcoming people.

“My job entails managing the team and managing the payroll processing for our portfolio of clients, making sure their objectives and expectations are met.

“I have been involved in payroll project management, payroll integrations, and payroll processing end to end for two decades.

“I have a strong work ethic and I am committed to ensuring excellent customer service, coupled with delivering quality service within the department.

“My ethos is to work hard and work smart, utilising the latest technology to streamline and structure processes to enable more time to build client rapport.

“It’s still a learning process for me to understand the clients and their needs, but my team is fantastic, they are really efficient and positive.”

Raquel’s team includes Amanda Cooley (Payroll Technical Manager), Hannah Ogley (Senior Payroll Administrator, Kelly Kearslake-Shell and Ben Buckler (Payroll Administrators), with trainee Nathan Parr

HWB Director James Alesbury said: “Raquel is an innovative and wholly professional operator who brings a great deal of experience across various sectors, both here and abroad, to HWB.

“She is very much an all-rounder who has settled in seamlessly to become an appreciated member of the HWB family and we are expecting great things from her.”

A Portuguese national born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Raquel also worked in Mozambique before moving to the UK eight years ago for family reasons.

Married to Ricardo and with three daughters, aged nine and eight-year-old twins, she lives in Fareham and enjoys the outdoor life, travel and family time in her spare moments.

Find out more about our Payroll Services.