Not for Profit

Chris Rising

Internal Audit Director

Chris joined MHA MacIntyre Hudson from a large mid-tier firm where he spent the previous 20 years since graduation from university managing a range of internal audit clients across the Not for Profit and Charity sectors.

Chris has over fifteen years of experience operating at a senior management level in supporting his client to ensure they have in place an effective governance, risk management and compliance framework and supporting a number of them through a period of uncertainty and change. Chris is a strong advocate for the innovative use of Internal Audit to provide assurance over the effectiveness of their control environment.

Chris is an ACCA Fellow and has dedicated his career to Internal Audit since graduating in Economics from the University of York.

Bianca Silva

Head of Education, Partner

Bianca heads the firm’s Schools & Academies sector, leading a team of Partners due to her specialist knowledge and expertise developed over 30 years; initially supporting a number of schools in the 1990’s which became Grant Maintained, then moving on to support independent schools as well as schools converting to Academy status and today advising established and growing Multi Academy Trusts, often with complex structures and individual needs.  Her diverse portfolio includes many charities, schools, academies, religious organisations and voluntary groups as well as commercial and owner managed businesses.  

Bianca holds the ICAEW Diploma in Charity Accounting, which acknowledges expertise and experience in charity accounting and finance at the highest level and is regularly referred to by Partners of the firm to provide guidance on the complex and regulated accounting requirements faced by the Not for Profit sector.

Bianca takes a personal interest in her clients' success and is proud to support the many dedicated individuals, organisations and professionals to achieve their goals. A member of the Churches Main Committee, she devotes much of her spare time to doing voluntary work.

Cara Miller

Partner

Cara is a qualified accountant with nearly 20 years experience and a Gold Medal winner for the ACCA Examinations achieving the highest exam results in the world for the professional stage exams. 

In addition to her general client portfolio, Cara specialises in working with the Not for Profit sector including local and national Charities, Independent Schools, Academies and community interest companies, supplying audit, assurance, governance and taxation advisory services to local and national organisations.

Audit is meant to be so much more than a number crunching exercise and Cara strives to ensure that the audit process is adding value through a risk based approach with open communication and feedback.

Cara’s client base extends across East Anglia, where she has a strong reputation for providing excellent hands on service to local businesses and charities. She was crowned the East Anglian Daily Times - Young Business Person of the Year in 2013.

Out of work Cara enjoys spending time with her husband and her children in the countryside.

Alyson Howard

Partner

Alyson is a specialist Education and Not for Profit Audit partner. She joined MHA MacIntyre Hudson in 2018 as part of the firm’s sector growth strategy. She advised the first converter academy in Kent and has gone on to advise the first academy PRU, special schools and those with PFI contracts assisting in the negotiation of revised funding streams to cater for special business cases.

She was previously head of the academies team at Williams Giles, where she started the academies practice when the first schools began to convert following the 2010 legislation. Prior to specialising in education, Alyson has enjoyed a career spanning Corporate Finance, Not for Profit audit, and Corporate Recovery. Alyson works with a number of academy training providers to deliver lectures on academy finance and management, and is also regularly asked to chair academy conferences and write articles for the sector.

Alyson was Chair of the Institute of Directors (IoD) in Kent between 2003 and 2007 and has held a number of roles at national level in the organisation. She has served several terms on the ruling Council, and Chaired the Membership Committee and acted as Deputy Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee between 2010 and 2017. She has a particular interest in governance in the Not for Profit sector and is currently serving on a policy sub committee of the IoD in this area.