People Spotlight: Ram Thirugnanasundaram, Finance Associate

Ram joined Bonham & Brook in 2023 as a Customer Success Manager, referred in by a friend connected to the business. He arrived with a first-class degree in Maths and Finance from City University, and brief experience working in credit control that left him looking for a better working environment. 

Once settled into the CSM role, Ram made his ambitions known, signalling his interest in finance early on. Managers including Raed and Clara backed that ambition, supporting him through a period of dual CSM and FC exposure before he moved into a full-time Associate FC role and was promoted to FC last year. “I had to prove I could handle it before I was given the room to grow into it,” Ram says of that period. 

That same pattern repeated itself again more recently. After being approached by Rob, Head of Finance, to help support Internal Finance operations, Ram spent around nine months balancing that alongside his FC role, before committing to his current Finance Associate role full time. Today, finance is his sole focus, working closely with Rob on reporting, forecasting, budgeting, and modelling across the business.

Ram counts his progression as one of his proudest achievements, each step earned rather than handed to him. He’s now working towards his ACCA qualification, with his first exam scheduled for next month, a clear next step on a path he’s building deliberately. 

For Ram, B&B’s culture is best summed up as family like, a sharp contrast to his experience before joining. He points to the relationships he’s built here as proof, recalling his former manager Vish attending his dad’s 60th birthday celebration. “That’s not something you’d expect from a manager anywhere else,” he says. He credits colleagues like Ollie and Morgan with making the demanding periods of his career feel manageable, on top of the wider sense of connection across the business through regular company wide town halls and annual events that bring B&B’s nationwide offices together. 

Ram’s advice for anyone starting out at B&B is to be upfront about what you want. His own progression started with making his ambitions known early, and it’s carried him through several role changes since. Being willing to prove yourself, and being honest about your goals along the way, was the key enabler in his growth. 

Looking ahead, Ram is inspired by Rob’s leadership within finance, and has set his sights on building that same level of capability in the next five to seven years. Outside of work, Ram is a lifelong Londoner who keeps a busy routine of weekly football, socialising with friends and family, and regular travel, recently returning from a trip to Malta.