It was the unlikely surroundings of Margate beach where Clive Stevens was inspired to become an accountant.

His first job, aged 17 in the summer of 1974, was selling deckchairs to tourists rolling up to the seafront, overlooked for the past five years by the Turner Contemporary, the art gallery where he is now chairman.

On one day, he saw council auditors sack a group of colleagues for fiddling the takings and felt a twinge of inspiration.

He said: “I thought ‘if these people have that much power, it’s a good job to do’.”

Mr Stevens’ parents encouraged their son – who had A-levels in art and maths – to seek a career in the professions and he joined Reeves and Neylan aged 18.

Today, he is chairman of the firm, now known as Kreston Reeves, but his latest appointment at the Turner Contemporary, which takes its name from the painter JMW Turner, another lover of Margate’s coastline, is no surprise to those who know him.

“My practice work has always been to do with the creative industries,” he said. “When I first trained I acted for a lot of graphic designers, and still do. It has always been there in the background.”

He became a partner at Reeves and Neylan in his early 30s and was made managing partner aged 39.

He kept the job until he was 58, when he moved over to the chairman role. He is overseeing the transition to new management, with Nigel Fright as managing partner and Andrew Griggs as senior partner.

Mr Stevens said: “They are coming up for succession and doing very well. They were part of the management team I formed and are doing an excellent job.

“One of the reasons I can do the Turner is because we have good succession in place.”

The firm’s management team has grown substantially in recent months after the acquisition of Spofforths, a company with four practices across the South East.

It put the business among the top 25 accountancies in the country by size, with 450 staff across 10 locations. The firm had 13 offices at the turn of the millennium, all in east Kent, but has followed a regional strategy since.

“Spofforths have services we don’t have and we have some things they don’t,” said Mr
Stevens.

“If you can lay that on a big area and save some costs, it is a benefit to everyone.”

Alongside his latest role outside his day job, Mr Stevens is also a director at inward investment agency Locate in Kent, a Kent Ambassador, and sits on the board of global accounting network Kreston International and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales.

He said: “I have been very fortunate in the firm to do a lot of different things. You can bring different experience to whatever boardroom you are in.”

What impact has the Turner Contemporary had on Margate since it opened five years ago?

“Before the Turner Contemporary, I remember the Old Town in Margate was really derelict. Now you go down there on a Sunday afternoon and it’s quite vibrant. Something like 50 businesses have opened since the Turner opened and it has attracted two million visitors, which has brought money in to the area.”

Why did you want to get involved?

“I got involved seven years ago, when Kent County Council set up a trust, because I live in Cliftonville. If I had lived in Ashford, maybe I would not have got involved. It was definitely a regeneration thing. The team at the Turner are first class. The range of art they show, from historic to modern, is amazing. I’m not an expert but I do have an interest in the creative industries.”

Why did you turn Kreston Reeves into a regional firm when it had 13 offices across east Kent at the turn of the millennium?

“We set out a plan to become a regional firm and merged all the offices into Canterbury and Chatham and moved westwards to London and Crawley. It wasn’t vanity on my part. It was the way the business world was going. In 2000, 90% of our practice work was recurring. Unless you were doing a poor job with people’s annual tax returns, you had the benefit of that. Today, only half our work is recurring but turnover has grown through project work and tax planning. We are increasingly selling our expertise and we need large clients’ business to sell that.”

CV

Born: 15/7/1956

Live: Cliftonville

School: Dover College

Family: Married to Brigitte with two grown up sons Matthew and Simon

First job: Deckchair attendant on Margate beach

First wage: £50 or £60 a week

Salary now: Undisclosed

Car: Jaguar XJ

Favourite book: Paradise Postponed by John Mortimer

Film: “I’m a big James Bond fan.”

Music: Caravan. “I loved the Canterbury sound.”

Gadget: iPhone

Last holiday: New York

Charity: Turner Contemporary and Cancer Research

Typical day

Clive Stevens leaves the house at 7am and works in Kreston Reeves’ Canterbury, Chatham, London or Gatwick offices.

He said: “One of the benefits of my job is it is so varied. That is what I love about it.”

His day is divided between meeting clients or internal management.

“I have got some managers who want to show me some work later today and I also set aside time to prepare for client meetings.”

He usually leaves the office between 5.30pm and 6pm and will attend an evening engagement three nights a week.

In his downtime, Mr Stevens is a philatelist – a stamp collector – specialising in the postal history of the Confederate States of America. He is also a fan of Tottenham Hotspur.