Charles Dennis.
Finance · Strategy · Artificial Intelligence

Charles
Dennis

Finance professional. Dedicated strategist. AI leader

I help complex, publicly accountable organisations turn financial discipline into strategic advantage. A CCAB-qualified finance leader applying governance, capital-programme acumen and purposeful agentic AI to the decisions that matter.

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CGMAACMACISAMSc Acct & FinChPP Finalist
Position ProfileREF: /finance/001
PracticeFinance & Strategy
SectorPublic · Regulated
MandateCapital Programmes
LeversGovernance · AI · Data
StandingCCAB · CISA · MSc
LocationNorthampton, UK
£250m+
capital programme
£bn+
regulated portfolio
10+
years finance
AI
agentic-first
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01

The discipline

three registers, one standard
FIN
Finance Professional

Discipline & control

  • Budgeting, forecasting & cost control
  • Financial governance & assurance
  • Business cases & investment appraisal
  • Board, executive & scrutiny reporting
STR
Dedicated Strategist

Strategy & value

  • Capital programme strategy
  • Annual planning & medium-term finance
  • Regulator & stakeholder engagement
  • Value for money, delivered
AI
AI Leader

Systems & intelligence

  • Practical agentic AI in finance
  • Data & decision support (Power BI, SQL)
  • Automation & audit-ready pipelines
  • Engineered with local inference in mind
02

Track record

senior finance across public & regulated sectors
Peterborough City Council
Project Finance Manager
Jun 2026 · Present
current role

Lead financial planning, investment appraisal and governance across the council's capital and operational portfolio, supporting Corporate Leadership Team decisions.

Green Book · NPV · whole-life cost · funding & cash-flow strategy

  • End-to-end financial planning and cost control for the capital project portfolio
  • Business-case development and challenge for multi-million-pound investments
  • Partnership finance, joint ventures and external funding bids
West Northamptonshire Council
Finance Business Partner
May 2023 · Jun 2026

Strategic financial leadership across a £250m+ capital programme and operational services, reporting to the Deputy Section 151 Officer.

AMP-level forecasts · MTFS · IFRS 9 · unqualified external audit

  • Owned programme affordability, budgets and rolling forecasts
  • Appraised major capital business cases incl. whole-life cost modelling
  • Built Power BI dashboards for real-time financial performance
Network Rail
Finance Business Partner
Dec 2018 · Apr 2023

Financial leadership and investment governance for a £bn+ infrastructure portfolio within a heavily regulated regime (Office of Rail and Road).

regulatory reporting · investment panels · ORR assurance · PCR2015

  • Facilitated investment panels for multi-million-pound capital proposals
  • Led financial performance ratification to the ORR and Group Finance
  • Deployed Power BI adopted by Group Finance and regulators
Notary Northampton
Head of Finance & Strategy
Apr 2022 · Present
part-time

Built the finance function from inception for a growing professional-services firm: controls, cloud accounting (Xero), cash-flow and statutory compliance.

controls framework · automation · revenue analytics

Earlier
Regulated utility & systems
2007 · 2018

A nine-year regulated-utility career at National Grid spanning critical national infrastructure, enterprise systems and regulatory compliance, plus systems and data leadership at BB Consultanta and Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS FT.

03 AI & Systems in practice

Agentic AI is not a buzzword here; it is an engineered practice. I build and lead systems that put data to work for public finance, engineered with local-inference and data-residency discipline at the core.

ENGINE · OPEN SOURCE

CDMS

RBAC-tiered council committee & decisions management SaaS with a ten-table append-only audit log, hardening governance and accountability.

github.com/cdennis12280
ENGINE · AGENT

MTFS Stress-Test Agent

A billable agent that stress-tests council Medium-Term Financial Strategies, scanning funding, risk and affordability horizons for decision makers.

github.com/cdennis12280
PRACTICE

Automation & analytics

Power BI, SQL and Python pipelines that automate financial analysis, lift reporting accuracy and turn raw data into defensible decision support.

local inference · privacy-first
04

Credentials & qualifications

professionally recognised, continuously deepened
01
CGMA · ACMA (CIMA)
Chartered Global Management Accountant, CCAB-recognised. Public & regulated-infrastructure finance, business cases and value for money.
02
CISA (ISACA)
Certified Information Systems Auditor. Information assurance, IT governance, audit and control frameworks, risk governance.
03
MSc Accounting & Finance
Postgraduate degree grounding strategic and financial management in rigorous academic analysis.
04
ChPP Finalist (APM)
Chartered Project Professional pathway; disciplined approach to leading complex programmes.

Let's build the financial
case for what's next.

Whether you lead a capital programme, a finance function or a transformation agenda, I bring the discipline of a finance professional, the judgement of a strategist and the capability of an AI leader.

Northampton, UK Public & regulated sectors Open to leadership conversations