Interim & Permanent Director of Finance
In 1970, a bold rescue mission brought the SS Great Britain back from the brink. More than five decades later, the organisation that grew around it is undergoing a transformation of similar ambition.
Today, the SS Great Britain Trust is far more than a historic ship or visitor attraction. It is evolving into a year-round, multi-use cultural and commercial campus—a place where heritage, learning, skills, enterprise and community life intersect to create lasting public value. This shift reflects a clear strategic ambition: to become a financially resilient, nationally significant cultural organisation with a diversified and sustainable operating model.
Delivering this transformation requires more than vision—it requires strong financial leadership at its core. Against this backdrop, the Trust engaged us to appoint both an Interim and a permanent Director of Finance. These roles would prove critical in supporting the organisation through a period of transition and enabling the delivery of its long-term strategy.
We have a long-standing relationship with the SS Great Britain Trust, having supported a number of key appointments. Building on this partnership, we were tasked with identifying leaders who could operate not only as financial experts, but as strategic partners to the executive team, capable of navigating complexity, enabling change, and underpinning organisational resilience.
Both roles required a combination of technical excellence and strategic insight. The successful candidates needed to support the Trust as it diversified income streams, strengthened commercial capability, invested in conservation, and expanded its role in learning, education and civic engagement.
The search was led by our Founding Director, Vanessa Moon, and Gemma Wilks, Head of our Management, Engineering and Technical Practice. Through a combination of targeted headhunting and carefully positioned outreach, we developed a strong and diverse candidate pool. Our process focused not only on financial capability, but on the ability to operate effectively within a complex, mission-driven and rapidly evolving organisational context.
Julie O’Shea was appointed as Interim Director of Finance at a critical point. Drawing on her extensive experience in transitional roles, she brought immediate clarity, rigour and control, strengthening financial oversight, supporting leadership decision-making, and ensuring operational stability during a period of change.
Her contribution was instrumental in maintaining confidence and momentum, allowing the organisation to continue progressing its plans from a stable financial footing.
Following this, Emma Hussey was appointed as permanent Finance Director. A highly regarded financial leader in the non-profit sector, Emma has played a central strategic role across the organisation, well beyond the traditional remit of finance.
Since joining, she has been instrumental in shaping and embedding the Trust’s new operating model. Working closely with the CEO and executive team, Emma has helped translate the strategic vision into a credible, deliverable financial pathway, aligning investment, income generation and cost control with long-term organisational goals.
Her impact has extended across the full breadth of the Trust’s activity.
Crucially, Emma’s leadership has helped position finance not simply as a control function, but as an enabler of transformation - supporting the Trust to evolve into a more agile, commercially capable and strategically focused organisation.
Her appointment marks a decisive shift from stability to delivery, with finance now fully integrated into the organisation’s wider ambition to operate as a dynamic cultural campus.
“Vanessa and her team provided invaluable support throughout the recruitment process, helping us make informed decisions and making the appointment engaging and successful. Julie ensured we had the stability and control we needed at a critical time, and Emma has gone on to play a pivotal role in shaping how we deliver our strategy - helping us build a more resilient, forward-looking organisation.”
“It has been a privilege to support the SS Great Britain Trust at such an important point in its evolution. These appointments were about far more than filling roles they were about enabling transformation at scale. Julie provided exactly the stability the organisation needed, and Emma is now driving real strategic impact, embedding financial leadership at the heart of a complex, ambitious and inspiring organisation.”
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