About Derek

I must have the business instinct in my blood, because whilst still at school I started up a tuck shop, which complemented the school funds from the very word go! After school I went to Nottingham University and now I am a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, with a degree in Economics and Mathematics under my belt.

After working for 'Price Waterhouse' I joined a Management Consulting group (P.E.)and worked on assignments in the UK, Italy, Cyprus and Nigeria. Then I joined the newly formed 'Manchester Business School', and taught Financial and Management Accounting. Whilst doing so I became convinced that control through figures often led to bad decisions, so when I had the chance I went as 'Foundation for Management Education Fellow' to the Stanford Business School to learn how such control did affect the actions of managers, often in unintended ways. When I returned to the UK, in 1971, I taught at the London Business School for twenty five years, during which time I designed and taught on programmes for many international companies including: The Bank of America, Barings International Securities, British Aerospace, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Courtaulds, Hambros, Hilton, ING, Paribas, S. G. Warburg & Co, 3M, and Unilever. These programmes took place in Europe, the Far East, Africa, Russia and South America.

Currently I am researching and presenting papers at conferences on how Pacioli, the Father of Accounting, may have used his skills in algebra to analyse how the double entry system was developed and used in Venice in the fifteenth century. You can see my videos about Pacioli's work on my you tube channel 'derekstone pacioli'. They explain how easy it is to develop business plans and there is also an introduction to my book, available on Amazon called 'Understand Accounting', 3rd edition. It is an easy read because it returns to Pacioli’s original, very simple approach, and incorporates it into an unfolding story.