Although her career to date has ranged from the skilled art of tattie roguing to running a clothes shop, Victoria Gammie knew early on that a life in numbers was for her.
After taking the accountancy skills she learned at Turriff Academy on to university, Miss Gammie entered the world of corporate finance and now, aged 28, is finance director at Aberdeen-based Apex Industrial Chemicals.
She said her focus now was on helping to grow the Altens company, which employs 33 people after recruiting eight in recent months.
Miss Gammie’s journey to the boardroom of the chemical product specialist was via two north-east accountancy firms, having spent nearly five years at Anderson Anderson and Brown and two at Hall Morrice.
It was the year she spent at venture-capital company Energy Ventures which made her decide the life of a director was for her, however.
“It is much more fun being on this side,” she said, adding: “I absolutely loved my job at Energy Ventures – being an observer on some of the company boards gave me a great insight into business – but I always thought that I would love to be in the businesses we were backing.
“I wanted to get my sleeves rolled up and get involved in running a company.”
Miss Gammie already has experience of running part of a business, however. Her mother, Sheila, previously owned five clothing stores across Scotland, and it fell to an 18-year-old Miss Gammie to oversee operations at one of the Granite City outlets to help pay for her accountancy studies at Aberdeen University.
Miss Gammie said: “I started working for my mother when I was still at school, and learned a lot from her about how to run a business.
“I really enjoyed the retail side, but always knew I wanted to do something for myself.”
Although Miss Gammie now lives in Aberdeen, she is from a farming background and her summers were spent tattie roguing – removing rogue varieties of potatoes and those infected with disease from fields – on the family farm at Mid Pitglassie.
The agriculture sector is one of several Apex now supplies from its 350-plus range of products.
According to Miss Gammie, the company, which exports to 22 countries across the world, has “clients ranging from the local fish and chip shop to global oil and gas players”.
Miss Gammie said it was this diverse client base which meant Apex, which was set up 30 years ago, has a strong platform for growth.
She said: “Although Aberdeen is primarily focused on oil and gas, a lot of our business comes from onshore. As well as the energy sector, we also serve the health, defence and transport industries.
“We launch new products every month as well, which expands the list of potential clients.
“It means the potential is absolutely huge for Apex, because the client base is so diverse – although the buoyancy of the oil and gas market means that is a key market for us, we are not really relying on one industry for our own growth.”
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