Director
Craig Williams
Originally a musician, Craig trained to be a Chartered Accountant in Bristol whilst being a director of a small independent record company. On qualifying in 1993, he worked in London for a number of accountancy practices that specialised in music business clients.
In 1995 Craig returned to Bristol to work as a consultant for a local firm, retaining some of his London clients. In late 1999 he set up his own practice, ‘MWM’ with some former colleagues. Craig worked in the company until ‘Zen’ was born in 2014 on the retirement of his partners.
Craig deals exclusively with entertainment and media businesses, with his particular expertise being the music industry. He has acted as a retained advisor to the Musician’s Union nationally on cross border taxation for touring artists and was chairman of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Entertainment and Media special interest group for 13 years.
Director
Craig Williams Cont.
His current voluntary post includes Treasurer of the Basement Studio (a youth music project), Community First Responder for the South West Ambulance Service and a Coastguard Rescue Officer. Craig was an operation member of Avon and Somerset Search and Cliff Rescue (the local mountain rescue team) for 11 years,
In parallel with his work in practice, he was an artist manager for seven years, managing some internationally successful acts.
Craig has been asked to speak and lecture on many forums, including Falmouth University Academy of Music and Theatre Arts, The Watershed Arts Trust, The Musicians Union, The Welsh Music Foundation, The Music Managers Forum. MCPS, and is currently a lecturer on the Master’s degree in Music Business at Tileyard University.
Tax Manager
Duncan Woodcock
Duncan has a wealth of knowledge and experience, offering all of the services you’d expect from an accountancy and tax specialist. You’re in safe hands. Despite not having envisaged a career in accountancy, after University, Duncan happened to land a job at a large, independent accountancy practice looking after the accounts and tax affairs of a wide range of clients.
This set him on the path to studying to become a Chartered Accountant in his spare time. After qualifying in 2010, a later job role with a greater tax bias led Duncan to dual-qualify as a Chartered Tax Adviser, which he achieved in 2013.
Consultant
Anton Lane
Anton is a Chartered Tax Adviser with over 20 years of experience solving tax problems. Anton is an industry recognised specialist dealing with contentious tax issues. He is the author of the Practical Enquiries Manual, several annotated Finance Acts and writes regularly for Taxation, Tax Adviser and Tax Digest.
Areas of expertise:
- Resolving HMRC disputes
- Offshore structures
- Anti-avoidance legislation
Consultant
Mike Donovan
Mike has always worked within the music and entertainment world – as an accountant at a heavy-rock management company, then at the Robert Stigwood Organisation, at a time when they were very successful with artists such as Eric Clapton and the Bee Gees, and the Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar stage shows.
Since that time, he has worked with hundreds of artists, including several of the biggest bands in the world and iconic artists such as Johnny Cash, James Brown, Little Richard and Brian Wilson. He now handles tour accounting and tax planning for many well-known names, as was the business manager for the legendary band Motorhead.
Consultant
Julie Eyre
Julie spent several years working in music publishing before working at established entertainment accounting firms, concentrating on record and music publishing audits.
This experience has enabled Julie to build a solid background of royalty expertise and offer a reliable royalty audit service.
Julie is a member of the MCPS audit panel and regularly carries out royalty examinations on behalf of music publishers represented by MCPS.
Manager of Bookkeeping, Payroll and VAT
Nurgul Musabekova
Nurgul Musabekova was born and raised in the beautiful country of Kyrgyzstan located in Central Asia. For a period of eight years, she travelled and lived in Africa, Europe, and Asia supporting some humanitarian causes whilst raising a family. Nurgul is fluent in Kyrgyz, Russian, and English. In recent years Nurgul qualified in the Association of Accounting Technicians(AAT) Diploma, Level 3 in Accounting.
Having gained much experience working in the accounts department for the mental health unit of a residential care home, Nurgul was responsible for the personal funds of residents who had no capacity to do so themselves. Nurgul was acknowledged for her exceptional caring ability and sense of responsibility despite the challenges of dealing with residents with mental health issues. During this time Nurgul became fascinated by the challenges of clinical mental health, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease as well as autism. This led her to undertake training in these fields.
Nurgul is a big fan of the arts, particularly music, film, visual, performing art, and dance. Intrigued by what goes on behind the scenes, she decided to integrate her accounting qualifications, experience and skill within the music and film industry. Nurgul is the co-founder of Kaizen Limited along with Craig Williams.
Office Manager
Karin Beasant
My name is Karin Beasant. I have been lucky enough to have had many different career paths in my working life.
From 16 years in optics, starting as a receptionist, to ending as a trainer.
Having worked part-time in pubs, alongside my full-time employment, I ended up being a manager, then single woman tenant of a three-hundred-year-old Bristol city pub, which was very haunted!
After having my son, I was lucky enough to spend 17 years in the trophy trade. Learning to engrave from scratch, which included engraving medals for a military historian, which was sent out to across the world and doing the accounts, plus running one of the shops.
I also had a part-time role in the former Woolworths, starting on the checkout, then the customer service desk, ending up in the cash office.
All the above were self-trained, as looking back I seem to like a challenge!
Then, in 2019, having known Craig Williams in the paranormal community I also inhabit, I cheekily asked him if he has any jobs and within two days I was working for him.
I love being the office manager, as I am a true old fashioned people person.
My motto in my working life has always been to treat people as you would love to be treated yourself.
Office Manager
Karin Beasant Cont.
In between work, I run public and private hire paranormal events, including the famous Jamaica Inn, high up on Bodmin moor, Cornwall, plus I help heritage locations that want to hire their venue out, by giving honest truthful advice
History is my passion and I feel so honoured to stay and investigate in some of our famous and non-famous historic locations around the UK.
It is a very time-consuming hobby, yet you meet some amazing people from around the world, including doing TV work, radio and now making documentaries, my life is hectic, but such fun!
It may sound old fashioned now, but good service to our clients, communication and being nice, is the key to a great working relationship in my view.
A cheerful person on the end of the line is more welcoming than someone who doesn’t want to be in their job, I adore mine and understand the stress and time limits of our clients in their businesses.
Trust, integrity, understanding is my mantra.
