Our Team

Helen Phillips FCA
Managing Partner

Following a varied scholastic career Helen Phillips entered into Articles with a small firm of Chartered Accountants in the City of London.  Following qualification she went to work as a travelling auditor in Canada.  She enjoyed a year of hard work and extensive travel before settling in Montreal as Financial Controller of a large car dealership.  Following a three year stint there Helen travelled in a Transit Van round the USA and Mexico for several months before returning to the UK.

For the next seven years Helen worked for the Market Research arm of Unilever before deciding that she ought to stay at home to look after her two babies, which soon became three!

Helen’s personal area of expertise is Insolvency which she practices, with a small team, under the name of Phillips & Co.  She is also a trained Mediator. In 1993 Russell Phillips was admitted to UK200Group which helps maintain high standards and ensures everyone in the practice can access necessary training. Helen was President of the Group for two years and is still on the Executive Committee.

In her spare time Helen is an animal lover and has shown and judged dogs and horses. She was the voluntary Treasurer of the British Horse Society for six years, is a Governor and chairman of the Finance and General Purposes Committee at a local school, and has been a Rotarian for 12 years.

As Helen starts to take more of a back-seat role at the practice, she intends to continue with her Open University degree in Humanities as well as add to the Genealogical research done by her Aunt in the UK and USA.

Stephen Cox FMAAT
Partner

Stephen went straight from school into public practice and managed offices in Uxbridge and Iver before joining Russell Phillips as Audit Manager in 1991. Stephen became a member of the Association of Accounting Technicians in 1977 and a Fellow in 1994, following 25 years in public practice. Stephen has many interests including philately, football and antiques.

Jonathan Russell
Partner

Jonathan has been a practising accountant for over 30 years, mostly in the Oxford area where he worked at Critchleys from 1981 to 2006, becoming a partner in 1985. He left to set up his own practice, ReesRussell, in Witney in 2006.

He is a former president of the UK200Group, a position he took on after working under Helen as vice-president the year before. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants as well as a member of the Academy of Experts, an associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and an ADR Group accredited mediator.

He will now be dividing his time between Russell Phillips and ReesRussell, but will always be available to clients of both via phone and email.

Jonathan lives in Buckland with his wife Valerie and their daughter Victoria. Having spent the past few years restoring and extending his property and tending the family’s flock of sheep the sheep have now gone and been replaced with horses. He is therefore frequently to be found at horse shows around the south of England as driver and cook not as rider! He is to be seen occasionally driving their own horse in harness.

Jonathan used to collect old Land Rovers but the collection is now reduced to his pride and joy, an original 1949 model which he has owned for over 30 years.

Waseem Sadique FCA

Waseem was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan. He trained at his uncles Printing and Publishing business whilst studying for his B.Com degree. He immigrated to the UK and served his training contract with a small firm in Southend on Sea, Essex, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1977.

He then joined Plessey Engineering Plc as a Management Accountant. The bulk of Plessey’s business was with the Ministry of Defence and gave a good introduction to the wider commercial world.

In 1978 he joined the Olayan Group in Saudi Arabia where he worked as Internal Auditor, Chief Accountant and Finance Manager. He then moved to Zahid Tractor and Heavy Machinery Co Ltd where he worked, first as a Controller and then as General Manager, Eastern Province.

Waseem returned to the UK after five years and gained his two year post-qualification experience with Alfred Neil in the City of London, obtaining his practicing certificate in 1987.

He set up his own firm Sadique and Co in Ealing and after successfully building a practice he merged with Russell Phillips in 1999.

Waseem’s industrial and commercial experience combined with his international exposure enables him to take a holistic approach to his clients business. He is a general practitioner with a wide variety of clients based in the UK and Middle East.

Waseem and his wife have two children, his daughter is a teacher and his son runs his own company, Sunflower Graphics Ltd in Surrey  www.sunflowergraphics.co.uk

Waseem spends his free time, walking and cycling in the Chilterns and enjoys swimming, gardening and playing badminton. He is the treasurer of the Residents Association in his village and runs Contact the Elderly, a charity which holds tea parties for the elderly residents of the villages. He is a veteran of the London to Brighton bike ride for the British Heart Foundation and a patron of SOS Children’s Village and Diya, Pakistan.