Privacy and confidentiality
Of the utmost importance, and set out in our Privacy and Confidentiality Policy and Procedure rather than left as a promise.
About
Complexity, made workable.
Tornado Network, Inc. helps companies cope with the increasing complexity of business, finance and law, and turns difficult material into reporting people can act on.
About us
The firm.
We work with organisations of every kind and help them get an overview of complex material or difficult situations, then translate that into clear, sized reporting they can use.
The company was founded in 2017 and has built a considerable body of knowledge since. We have a dedicated team of professionals whose work is to help clients reach their business goals, and a working culture that treats other people's problems as worth real effort.
Values and mission
What we are for.
Our values are centred on our clients, our staff, our stakeholders and shareholders, and their families. We are committed to building the economic foundations of a fair and prosperous world by caring for the success of our people and clients, the health of financial markets, and the integrity of our industry.
Development and improvement
We identify areas for development and improvement with your help, and keep working to raise our own service standards as well as yours.
Passion
Every member of staff cares about the work they do and treats every client as of paramount importance.
Founder
Martin van Helden.
Martin began in the numbers. In 1995 he founded VHH Accountancy and spent the next fourteen years as its director and owner, building the team, taking on the office, and carrying the responsibility that comes with other people's livelihoods and other people's books.
He then did the thing most accountants only advise on: he went and operated. Between 2014 and 2018 he owned and directed a food company and a restaurant, a business with thin margins, perishable stock, shift rosters and regulators. It was an education in operational reality that no audit file provides.
Since 2018 he has worked as an investor and author, setting up businesses, bringing them into saleable condition and passing them on. That work includes writing and implementing the policy and procedure frameworks that qualified organisations to pass government audit under Australia's NDIS program. That documentation was built specifically to withstand an outsider reading it closely.
Tornado Network, Inc. was incorporated in the State of Wyoming on 5 May 2017 as the vehicle for that practice.
Career
Thirty years, three industries.
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1995 – 2009
Director & Owner at VHH Accountancy
Founded and led a full-service accountancy practice: annual accounts, bookkeeping and financial advisory for owner-managed businesses. Built and supervised the team, the premises and the client book over fourteen years.
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2014 – 2018
Director & Owner of a food company and restaurant
Ownership and day-to-day direction of a hospitality operation, including food safety compliance, staffing, supply and the margin discipline that sector demands.
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2018 – present
Investor, Author & Principal at Tornado Network, Inc.
Setting up, restructuring and selling businesses. Author of business books published at authormartin.com. Implementation of policies and procedures for government audit qualification under the NDIS program.
Qualifications
Formal credentials.
AIM Business School
Postgraduate management qualification, awarded August 2016. Units in leading and developing people, developing and implementing strategy, operational planning and operational improvement.
Certificate IV in Small Business Management
BSB40407, awarded 2012.
Sector compliance training
Safe food handling practices (SITXFSA201, 2014) and Australian Government Department of Health infection control certification (2021).
In his own words
Style and intent.
My personal goal is to create a solid and sustainable family office with multiple disciplines and income streams, to build, secure and preserve wealth for now and for all future generations carrying the van Helden name.
Martin describes his own communication as straightforward. He does not circle difficult conversations, and he reads the documents before he forms a view, a habit from fourteen years of signing off on other people's accounts.
He has led administrative teams, supervised daily operations, set performance expectations and dealt with problems as they arose rather than after they compounded. Clients tend to describe the experience as direct, occasionally impatient, and productive.
Outside the work, he is drawn to complex technical construction and science, especially space technology, aviation, cars and Formula 1, and to the coast, travel and unfamiliar cultures.
Read his books at authormartin.com →
Work with Martin directly.
Engagements are taken on in small numbers so that the principal stays on the file from first call to completion.