Michaela Riaz

Michaela began her career in accounting at sixteen, and has spent over a decade since working across practice, industry and the public sector. She has managed a portfolio of more than fifty SME clients, overseen a £50m capital projects portfolio, and held financial control across UK and international entities.

She co-founded Ozria Consulting with Sem Ozyurt after seeing the same pattern repeat in fast-growing businesses: finance problems that were patched rather than fixed. At Ozria she leads outsourced finance functions and project work, usually for businesses with complex company structures or demanding reporting requirements.

Her background is in the work most people avoid. She has recovered around £5m of historical debt through a targeted credit control programme, and reconciled and rebuilt records to take international entities through audit.

At Misia she brings the same discipline to AI spend: one figure for the month, split by department and by person, held against a budget and a forecast. She writes about AI spend from the finance side: what it costs, where it lands and how to plan for it.

Michaela holds a BA (Hons) in Accounting and Finance from the University of Kent. She is a Xero expert and a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and works across NetSuite, SAP, Dext and BrightPay.

Ask her about a business idea, where to eat, or her cats Cleo and Hera, and you will lose an hour.