Episode Transcript

Please note this transcript was generated by AI and contains errors including missing and misspelled words.

[00:00:09] Meryl: Hi there and welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Meryl Johnston. The Lifestyle Accountant Show exists to help today's accounting firm owners build successful firms while also living a healthy, happy life without sacrificing sleep, your weekends or time with loved ones. Today I'm chatting with Christine Oliver.

Christine is a Senior Managing Director at Ancura, where she provides expert evidence in a wide range of commercial disputes. Prior to joining Ancura, Christine was a partner at a Big Four global accountancy firm, where she led their Australian dispute advisory practice. And before all of that, she was a graduate accountant with me at BDO Melbourne.

[00:00:49] Christine [Soundbyte]: But look, you know, there are, there are trade offs as well. One of, you know, one of the things actually, this is a day job thing that was different about being at KPMG Hodgson. Not once did I ever have my entire time at KPMG, I never had a client ask me to basically validate my expertise.

[00:01:06] Meryl: Today I'm chatting with Christine about what it's really like to be a partner at a big four firm.

What sacrifices will you need to make along the way to become a partner? What are the expectations of you when you're there and how does that tie to compensation? How is your performance measured? What sort of salary can you expect? How does the buy in process work? And who should consider becoming a partner at a big four firm?

And more importantly, who shouldn't? It's not right for everybody. Christine also talks about the reason that she decided to leave the Big Four and instead move to a private equity backed commercial disputes firm. Christine's got an interesting perspective. Prior to being a partner at KPMG, she was a partner at a boutique firm called Feria Hodgson.

And so she's got a unique perspective where she's worked and been a partner across a boutique firm, a Big Four. And now we're a private equity backed firm and so she's got some interesting insights and comparing and contrasting what those different firms are like. All that and more coming right up on the Lifestyle Accountant Show.

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[00:03:11] Meryl: Christine, welcome to the podcast. Good to see you. We were chatting off air and it's, it's been a number of years now, but we were actually grads together at BDO in the audit division back in the day.

[00:03:18] Christine: I know. I know. It feels a very long time ago now.

[00:03:20] Meryl: Your career's changed direction since then.  I'd love to get a bit of background. The purpose of the podcast today is to talk about your role as a partner in a Big Four firm and then your decision to move on from that. But I'd love to get the backstory, the the history of how you ended up there. So what happened after? Your time in audit at BDO.

[00:03:39] Christine: Yeah, so, um, and you were probably around for this. So, you know, as many people do, um, look, I did enjoy my time in audit, but I got to a point where, uh, I just didn't feel like I was learning as much anymore. You know, there's only so many ways you can test a debtor is real. Um, and so I just, I wanted a new challenge.

I wanted to do something with the skill set I had and I was okay to take a sideways step. step, you know, you might recall, at least at that time, I was pretty ambitious. So I didn't really want to start over, remember, yeah, well, I'm sure we'll cover that later. Um, you know, I didn't really want to start over.

So it was where can I take the skills that I've got and reposition that into something and forensic was just such a great. Um, I just happened to bump into someone, um, who worked in a firm that, um, it specialized in, in corporate restructuring, but it had a forensic division. They were looking for someone and, you know, as they say, the rest is history.

I joined that firm with a view that I would be there for about three years and probably get bored of that and move on. Um, and it just sort of goes to show when you sort of find something you love and. working with people that you love as well that, you know, it can really change sort of both the direction of your life and your career.

So, I ended up at that firm for 12 years. Um, so that sort of starts putting my age into perspective, I suspect, but so that firm for 12 years, um, before we merged. Well, we use the term merge. It was really an acquisition by, uh, KPMG and that's how I ended up. being a partner at Big Four. So I went through sort of most of my career and most of the trajectory towards partner, um, and even became a partner at the previous firm, Varia Hodgson.

So yeah, so as I said, I had this sort of view, I was going to be there for a short time and Ended up there for a really, really long time.

[00:05:30] Meryl: I knew you were ambitious from, from our day. I could see that, the burning ambition. Uh, and you mentioned that you thought when you moved to Ferrier Hodgson that you might only be there for three or four years.

Was your goal always to be a partner somewhere?

[00:05:46] Christine: Yeah, I thought so. And look, it's funny how you look back on your former self. And look, to be honest, I say this to a lot of people. If you don't, I think if you don't look back on your former self and go, Oh my God, what were you thinking? Um, there's probably not been enough personal growth there, right?

Like, I actually think it's not embarrassing, but I think we all should sort of look back on our former selves and feel a little bit uncomfortable because that's, I think, a sign that you've grown. But, um, you know, look, certainly when I was early in my career, um, I probably thought I knew a hell of a lot more than I did.

Um, and, and equally, I looked at the people that, you know, were leaders in, in our team and thought, why, why can't I, you know, I think I can do that. And, and why not? Um, so yes, it was to. You know, basically go as far as I could and I certainly thought that, you know, I was capable of being a partner and so that was the goal.

[00:06:36] Meryl: And what was, could you describe a little bit more about Ferrier Hodgson? You described it as a boutique firm. What, what size, how many people were there, how many partners?  

[00:06:44] Christine: Yeah, so at the time of the KPMG merger, I'm going to forget how many people there were. There were probably sort of about 150, that, that sort of number, about 27 partners, um, across.

sort of pretty much all states bar Tassie. So, yeah, you know, it's a very solid boutique size. That would be, you know, certainly same size as some of your smaller mid tiers, but it really only did, um, restructuring and forensic, a little bit of management consulting, but that was sort of one or two people.

It was really predominantly a restructuring firm.

[00:07:19] Meryl: Well, I think we can have an interesting conversation with you because we can... Compare and contrast. What it's like being a partner at a boutique firm and then also at a big board. So, I want to start with what the pathway was like to becoming a partner and I'm going to reflect.

I was only at BDO for three years but I remember looking at the managers and the assistant directors. They were called directors there and they were working their butts off. So, they were there, they were doing the late nights, they were putting in the hours, they were managing the staff and then I remember some of the partners, they on the outside.

It looked like they had it pretty good. They were off golfing. They were at events. They were bringing in the business. They were doing sometimes quick reviews because they were relying on their team. But I've heard since, uh, you know, 15 years later with friends in the industry talking about, Oh no, they, they, they working their butts off long hours.

So what was it? Was it like in reality?

[00:08:08] Christine: Um, look, I think the answer is if, if you're doing it right, it's probably more, more the latter. Um, And look, certainly I'm not a, not a golfer, so that's kind of not me, but, and yes, there is actually a lot of going out and what looks like socializing with clients or potential clients, but to be honest, that's actually hard work.

You're not, you're not there to have fun and to be honest, after you've put in, you know, nine or sometimes 10 hours in the office, the thought of, you know, having to go. And, you know, go to an event and you have to be on and you have to be in a great mood and all of those sorts of things like, you know, again, from the outside, it can sometimes, you know, I'm not saying it's not ever fun, but that is like, that's part of the job and it is work as well.

Um, so yeah, that's, that's absolutely right. There are long hours involved sort of necessarily, um. There are certainly things that you can do to find balance. So, um, probably not the case at the moment because I'm effectively running a startup. And so that comes, you know, you've done that. So you kind of get what all of that comes with.

Um, but you know, you can find balance. So my sort of rule at both at KPMG and Imperial Hodgson was it had to be sort of really bad before I would work a weekend. So I'd quite happily work. Late at late night, that was fine. You know, there were certainly, you know, a fair few late nights, but the way I found balance was, you know, I get to a point on Friday, the laptop closes.

I'm one of those weird people with a work phone, a personal phone, work phone goes into drawer. People can get me if they absolutely need me, but otherwise, weekends are off. And that's sort of how I found that time to kind of step away. You know, become a three dimensional human as opposed to someone that works all the time and then, you know, fire up again on, on Monday morning.

[00:09:56] Meryl: And when you say late night, what does that mean? Because I think that can mean different things to different people too.

[00:10:00] Christine: Yeah, look, in my, in my space, it's highly variable. So, you know, unlike audit, which has a busy season, and you'd remember this, it would be sort of pretty regular during busy season that we would work nine 10.

probably every night during that period. Um, certainly not like that in my role because the work is a lot more spontaneous and it's a lot more reactionary. Um, so look, I'm not going to lie. There are nights where I might have to work until 1 a. m, but they're pretty few and far between. Um, but you know, seven o'clock's not uncommon.

It just, it really depends on sort of what, what's on. Um, there are occasions where I get to finish at five, but you know, they're not all that frequent and it's normally because I've got. You know, some sort of client commitment that I've got to go to if I'm knocking off, I'll call it the day job at five.

[00:10:49] Meryl: And so when you're a partner in a firm like Ferrier Hodgson, what is the decision making process look like? Because as partners, you're essentially business owners, but there's quite a few of you to get that I imagine are required to get to consensus on different things.

[00:11:01] Christine: Yeah, so again, different, different firms are structured very differently.

So at Feria Hodgson, um, you know, for most of the time I was a partner there, there were four of us who were partners in the Forensic Accounting Division. Um, and we had a fair degree of autonomy to make decisions about that. business. Um, and largely, um, our senior partner actually hates leadership roles.

And so the way it tended to work was the remaining three of us kind of as a group would make decisions and three is a great number to make decisions with. Um, you know, as long as you don't end up with a dynamic or it's the same two against the same one all the time. And we certainly didn't have that.

It was always sort of a different combination of people. And we had a great. amount of respect for each other as well. And so, yes, you'd be on the minority side of, you know, some decisions from time to time, but you sort of, well, I don't love that, but, you know, I'm going to let that go because I know at some point later, I'm going to be in the majority.

I'm going to want the one person that's sort of the odd one out to do the same thing. So, we kind of made decisions that way. But if it was anything that sort of affected the whole firm, like people policy or things like that, then, um, those decisions were made by the executive committee and our executive committee had, uh, four people from, um, sort of each of our state offices, plus a fifth wheel, um, They are sort of technical profs.

Um, but you know that that was how we made decisions that, you know, about, for example, parental leave policies or something like that it was fair and wide. And so if you wanted to influence those decisions, you had to make sure that you were speaking to, you know, both your state rep, bar or study, you know, the other state reps because...

They were the ones that made those decisions.

[00:12:47] Meryl: So what would be an example of a decision that you could make the, the four of you? So I imagine that's things like hiring and firing. What would be some of the other things that you're debating, the three of you, if not the four of you?

[00:12:58] Christine: Yeah. Um, you know, things like. How we would structure an expert's report or we actually had a fair degree of autonomy about, you know, and even this is going back a long way. I know it doesn't sound unusual now, but at the time, you know, we had sort of pretty good flexibility and allowing our team to operate different hours to others.

We just happened to be in a team when none of us were morning people for a period of time. And so actually my team, you know, tended to come in somewhere between sort of. 10 and 1030. That wasn't a policy that applied to the rest of the office, but kind of applied to us. We were also doing kind of the national thing long before COVID as well.

Um, and so that was the decision we made to resource our jobs from people, you know, regardless of the location. Um, and that was a decision we could make independent of what the rest of the firm. we're steering. So yeah, things like that and then, you know, sort of technical things, how we train our team. Um, yeah, those sorts of things.

[00:13:58] Meryl: And I've always been curious as well, because as partners, I imagine that you're all or mostly revenue generating. So the incentives are for you to be focused on your clients and your teams and building the business. But then you're also operating a business, you're in the business, in this case insolvency.

But if you're working on policies about parental leave or marketing the firm that's taking you away from your client base and being revenue generating. So how do you manage? I mean, I mean, how does that business or how do you think about managing those different trade offs and incentives?

[00:14:32] Christine: Yeah, it look, it depends on the business and kind of what the role is and how it's valued.

So, um, certainly at sort of a smaller firm, you rely a lot more on your non client facing staff to do a lot of the legwork for you. And so, um, for example, you know, on parental leave policies, most of that. Sort of the work in that would be done by, you know, out there and as it was called human resources team, and then it was just the decision making part that was usually done by partners, um, towards the end of my time there, we, we went through a big, um, Sort of, again, it seems to be a buzzword now, wasn't it at the time?

We did a big strategy transformation looking at sort of how we pivoted the firm, both in terms of sort of direction in the market. Um, and also I think sort of modernizing the firm in some ways. Um, I had a role in, in sort of implementing that strategy internally, but that, you know, that was an explicit role.

And so there was an acknowledgement that part of my role was internal facing and sort of basically my KPIs were adjusted to reflect. that I was spending significant time in the firm. You know, if you sort of pivot to a bigger firm, then it's sort of again, sometimes the KPIs are adjusted, sometimes they're not.

And it's about you making that personal decision about kind of, you know, is it worth it? Um, you know, from a values perspective, from a business perspective, from an individual perspective, you know, does this role make sense for me, or, you know, particularly in a bigger firm, there are a whole bunch of other people, you don't have to do everything yourself.

So sometimes sort of stepping back and saying, actually, this isn't the role for me is the right thing to do.

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[00:17:48] Christine: Let's transition now to what that merger looked like. So you've gone from a boutique firm and then you're acquired by KPMG and I'd love to hear

about that whole process. Yeah, look that, that was interesting and look, not to give myself a pat on the back, I was on the um, the merger committee for that and to be honest, I think we did a pretty good job.

I think the key to that success, the success of that was Making sure our people had spent, and again, we're all talking pre COVID, but had spent real quality time with each other before day one. So it wasn't sort of that everybody turned up and, um, you know, of course we were a lot smaller than, than KPMG was.

But in terms of the spaces we were going into, certainly in my space, we were actually sort of. In the two offices that we had forensic, forensic in, which was Melbourne and Sydney, we were actually near on about the same size as the existing KPMG team. And so, yes, we were the ones going into the big firm, but you know, in terms of the space we were in, it was a little bit more a merger of equals.

Um, and so, yeah, having everybody have met each other and interacted in a sort of a low pressure way was, was absolutely. Key rather than having everyone turn up, sort of going, who are you lot and how do we work with you and all of those sorts of things. Um, but you know, coming in as a partner, very, very different.

Um, certainly in the, in the bigger firms, um, you, you go, the background checks you go through, you sort of. Feel like you're getting ASIO clearance. It's, it's just extraordinary. Um, which was interesting and yet just, you know, decision, understanding how the whole firm works. It's so much more complicated than when you've got, you know, 27 partners to get through, you know, they're about somewhere between.

And again, it sort of fluctuates, but you know, sort of 650 and 700 KPMG partners. Right. So it's the scale is just completely different.

[00:19:37] Meryl: So if you could compare and contrast being a partner at the two firms, what would you say in terms of the day to day for you? Were there some similarities? Were there some big differences?

[00:19:46] Christine: Yeah, so similarities are kind of like, you know, what I'll call the day job. Look, the processes for achieving some things are a little bit different, like conflict checks, for example, are very, very different in a big full service firm. When they are, when there's 27 of you providing sort of two or three services, but sort of beyond that, it was things like how your performance as a partner was, was sort of measured, how you got feedback, how you were remunerated with, with.

a bit different. What else? Decision making structures were different. Like again, it's probably unsurprising when you have 650, 700 partners as part of one firm, you do have a lot less decision making autonomy than you do. in a firm where there are a lot fewer of you. And that's sort of the formality of the decision making structures in a bigger organization.

But also, even in a smaller organization, if you don't have the decision making authority, you probably have the relationship with the person that does. And that can often make it, you know, even if you're not the person making the decision, if there's something that you're really passionate about, there's often a way To achieve that it's obviously a lot harder in a bigger firm because the decision making authority might not sit with you.

It might not even sit in your division or with someone that you've ever met. And so, you know, that can make things infinitely harder if there's something that you want to achieve that's not within your. Your remit, but look, you know, there are, there are trade offs as well. One of, you know, one of the things, actually this is a day job thing that was different about being at KPMG Hodgson.

Not once did I ever have my entire time at KPMG. I never had a client ask me to basically validate my expertise. Not once. You just walk in a, I know it sounds silly, but you just walk in a room and people assume you know what you're talking about as a big four partner. Um, I've met a lot of big four partners, not just at KPMG, that might not be the safest assumption in the world.

To be fair, most of them are fabulous, but I'm just saying it's not universal. Um, anyway, my point being that, you know, there are trade offs, right? The reputation and the brand, although they are taking a little bit of a hit at the moment. But generally speaking, the reputation, the brand is fabulous.

Depending on the types of work you do, um, there are so many partners at big four firms that just don't have to spend the time that, say, I would do now marketing to clients because there's just natural workflows for them that flow through different parts of the business. And so, You know, it can make that easier as well.

So it's sort of, there is, it depends on what you want to achieve in career, right? And also what stage of your career you're at. So I think Big Four is a great place for people becoming partners because people assume you know what you're talking about, um, which they don't. If you work at sort of a smaller firm, I can guarantee that.

And also there's just a, there's a natural source of referral work for you. And so the amount of work that you have to go out to market and win on your own is a lot. Smaller. And so, yeah, if you're starting that point of your career, it kind of gives you a little bit of a, a little bit of a boost.

[00:22:49] Meryl: If we look at the expectations of a part, what are the expectations of a partner at a big four firm?

So you've talked about KPIs before. What are the expectations? What are they measuring you on? And how does that tie to compensation?

[00:23:04] Christine: Well, again, so all of the big four are sort of different in different ways. But let me generalize for a minute because, you know, obviously I've got a lot of friends in other firms.

But look, absolutely the revenue that you're bringing in, different firms will place different weights on the importance of that being what I'd call self generated work. So KPMG doesn't really care where it comes from, but there are other big fours that do. Um, so, you know, how I was just talking about that sort of natural pipeline of work that you can get being in a big four, um, KPMG doesn't sort of care where it comes from if you're, you know, doing the work and delivering it.

Fantastic. Other firms will care about whether it's generated internally or... by your own work.

[00:23:48] Meryl: That's interesting because you could be sitting there as a KPMG partner, be great buddies with the tax partner who just has all of these clients that need your services and you're sitting pretty, don't have to go out, spend every Thursday and Friday night at these networking events.

[00:24:02] Christine: Interesting. That's right. But that's how that firm functions. So yes, revenue is important. Um, but you know, it's all business drivers, right? And again, different firms place different emphasis in different spots. So KPMG was very much about revenue. It wasn't so much about, um, where it came from that, that sort of didn't really matter.

It was about hitting those revenue targets. It's obviously getting in the money in the door, you know, you can't just sort of bill all the way from the clients have a pay, um, you actually, you actually need to get that in the door. So, um, and again, it depends on how the firm's cashflow is going as well. Um, certainly in times where firms are hitting budget or things like that, there's a real focus on making sure that, you know, your client's paying on time.

So again, thinking about a normal business, you know, debtor days is something that you would get measured on as would you whip days, you know, all of those sorts of things. Again, other things fading to your performance. So again, every firm does this differently. But, you know, if your team hates you, that's not going to go well for your performance review, there is, to be fair, a little bit of an understanding that, you know, when you're responsible for writing someone else's performance, they're not going to love you all the time.

Most systems will sort of tolerate that. But, you know, if your whole team hates you, that's a problem. Um, and then equally, you know, if you're running into sort of repeated issues on jobs, So, you know, if you're one of the people that the risk function is, is commonly having to speak to, or we're having to put insurance notifications in about, you know, that that's going to be a negative on your performance as well.

And then again, different firms have different views about the importance of internal roles and also, you know, different roles carry sort of different degrees of weight. And all of that kind of goes into your performance and then. Again, different firms do that differently. So most firms operate under some sort of banding structure.

And sort of what that means. It's basically your level of equity within the firm. And so basically the better you perform, the more likely you are to increase your banding. Um, and that has consequences for your, your RAM. Your RAM's basically tied to in most of those firms, your banding.

[00:26:14] Meryl: So roughly what would a big four partner be taking home in terms?

I don't know if you split it between salary and the percentage of equity or it's all tied up in that whole banding. Now, Christina, I'm not asking what you take home, I just as a, just generally what, what if a graduate today was thinking, is that a path I want to follow? I'm going to weigh up work hours, I'm going to weigh up compensation, I'm going to weigh up all these factors. That's a factor that would be very interesting, I think.

[00:26:45] Christine: Yeah. So look, they're probably, and again, I sort of lose touch with what, you know, I'm not an entry level partner anymore and haven't been for some time. And to be fair at KPMG, we had what's called open band. So as a partner, you could actually go and find what any partner earns if you wanted to.

But I sort of have always had a motto that kind of, if you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares into you. So I never look. I just, I think it's one of those things that it's not, it's not healthy anyway. So as long as I'm saying, I don't actually know where the starting bands would be these days, but it'd be something like two 50, um, before tax, obviously.

And there's no super on that cause it's all equity earnings. So that's. You sort of take home 250 and then you got to pay your, your tax on top of that.

[00:27:27] Meryl: And do you buy in? Is that how, is that how it works? So you need to come up with a certain amount or over a certain period of time. How does that actually work?

[00:27:34] Christine: Again, very different between Big Four and some of the other firms. So I, I don't know of any of the Big Four where, yes. You do buy in, but it's all debt funded. So you don't actually have to come up with that money yourself. There'll be a financier that sits behind that. And again, it, it all kind of becomes a bit murky in terms of how all the money flows, but, um, you know, there's some interests that you notionally pay out of your salary to, to fund that loan.

You can repay the loan. Um, I don't know anyone that's done that, but you can, um, whereas if you talk about a boutique firm, so Feria Hodgson, um, as an equity. partner that was a buy in model. You were given a period of time over which to buy in, but yes, that was a, you stump up some cash to obtain the equity.

[00:28:23] Meryl: It is interesting hearing about that with smaller firms. So, I'm thinking local suburban firms where I've heard of friends buying in and thinking, wow, like that, there's, it's a pretty small firm. There's not, there's not that much defensibility to it and you're mortgaging your house, um, to, to buy in. it wouldn't be that difficult to just start a new firm that's similar to the size of, of that, that would be of the suburban firm in a few, few years.

Now, I think differently to a boutique firm with a brand or definitely big ball, that's not something that you can start overnight, but there's, I think it's completely different. But I think it is something that's interesting to think about if you're a young accountant kind of working your way up is well that that's quite a risk if you're, if you've got to stump up with the cash quite quickly or pay it off over a small number of years.

I realized I didn't ask a follow up question. You shared the um, what a, an entry level partner might be making. What would be the top end of that if you're comfortable sharing?

[00:29:17] Christine: Look, I couldn't even tell you but you know, if you became the, you know, the CEO of KPMG, you know, one would think you're probably on something I'm sure actually you can probably Google that again.

I just, it's one of those things I don't think is healthy, but like keeping at least five, right? Like it'd be something more than that. Um, and then someone will listen to this podcast and then sort of email me exactly how much, but I, it's one of those things that you probably tell not. sort of particularly, you know, monetary motivated, just we all learn enough, right?

I just, like, so I sort of get to a point where, you know, what, what's the point in knowing what a, you know, the CEO of KPMG get, gets paid. Um, you know, you're either going to be upset that it's more than you think it should be, or just, yeah, I just don't think it's healthy.

[00:30:05] Meryl: Yeah. What kind of person do you think should take that pathway to become a partner?

Add anything. At any kind of firm, whether it's a boutique firm, mid tier, big four, is there certain personality traits or a level of ambition? Because it's probably not the right fit for everybody.

[00:30:19] Christine: No, look, it's, it's not, but in some ways it's sort of the same as being a, it's sort of a combination of the same as being a leader anywhere.

And then it's a little bit about what firm is right for you, I think. So, you know, you're not going to become a partner somewhere without, you know, a fair amount of work. And certainly at times, that being at a compromise to your personal life in a way that you're not going to want it to, like, I know we all want to say work life balance, but I'm just going to be real for a minute.

If you really want to get there, it is going to require, you know, a sacrifice that you may not want to make. And so that like, that's the trade off. So there's a degree of that, um, you know, depending on what your personal circumstances are, you'd need to have a partner, probably that, you know, a personal partner, if you've got one that that's understanding of that, you know, certainly in my job, like, um, because I work with sort of court deadlines and things like that, I will, for example, just, you know, I might get a call after this, that suddenly means I'm not gonna be home until midnight.

tonight. And so, you know, you, you need to be someone that can be adaptable to that. They are sure there are service lines where you may not have that, but those are mostly ones that have things like busy seasons where you might not be seen for three months. So it's sort of, as I said, you, you've got to, on some degree, understand that there's a personal compromise involved.

Um, and then, yeah, as I said, beyond that. Um, it's all of your typical leadership stuff. Leadership can often be a really lonely place, even if you're in a firm with 700 others who are sort of doing the exact same thing. Um, you know, there are going to be times when you've got to give your team hard news and give them a decision you didn't make, but you've still got to stand behind it because it's the right thing to do for your firm.

So you, you know, you've got to be someone that has the resilience to, you know, go through all of those leadership things. Because at times... you know, they're not fun. And then yeah, finally, it's about what sort of firm suits you because every firm, even big or small, you know, has very, very different cultures.

So I'm kind of out of the partnership world now and my firm is private equity back. So I'm back to being an employee, which is really interesting, but you know, there are other firms that are entering the Australian market kind of all at the same time. Doing very, very similar things, but their cultures are very different.

So I wouldn't sort of necessarily name drop firms. I can talk about my firm, the culture at my firm is very, very much about collaboration and we're rammed in that way. And as a consequence of that, sort of the flip side of that is if you are a person who, you know, really values being rewarded for individual.

effort. So, you know, you think if you put in the hard words, hard yards personally, but maybe the rest of the team doesn't quite get there, my firm's not going to be for you. We're kind of a no one wins alone type team, right? And that, and that's how it's built. But equally, there's certainly another private equity backed firm I know in this market where it is all about you put in the hard work regardless of how the rest of the Firms performing, you know, you get rewarded for that.

But you know, that creates different behaviors and different dynamics. So, it's about kind of what motivates you and how do you best work and what brings the best out of you when finding a firm, you know, hopefully, it does what you do that aligns with that.

[00:33:35] Meryl: I do want to jump into that transition and, and how you made that.

But I wanted to ask a quick follow up question. I thought you had some good advice there around Setting expectations with your partner about what was expected with your work life and I wondered if you could share a story or an example of that of how whether your partner is in a similar industry and how you went about that education process, what's expected in your role and what that could mean for your personal life.

[00:34:01] Christine: Yeah, so full disclosure, I'm not with my partner anymore, and this might have had something to do with it. Um, so hence, you know, sometimes we learn from mistakes, but, um, and equally, I've got a lot of friends that obviously also partners at Big Four or other firms. And, you know, I can see the relationships that are successful and perhaps contrast that with mine.

I think sometimes it helps if your partner is also in professional services or has worked in professional services. Like, I can certainly see with some of my team who, um, you know, partners with. You know, their, their girlfriend or fiance is, you know, is a lawyer. They fundamentally get it. That can make things a bit easier.

It can also make things harder because they often have the same pressures on themselves. And when you've got two people that have extraordinary pressures on their time, sometimes that. You know, if you don't have a good system for making sure you're giving each other time then that can be difficult too.

But I think what you said in your follow up question is actually the right thing. It's about communication and I think having those conversations and, and setting realistic expectations and just doing that once. But, you know, checking in repeatedly about sort of where you are and, you know, making sure the other person's getting what they need out of the relationship as, as well.

[00:35:09] Meryl: Yeah. Great advice. All right. Now, I'm really curious. You've got so many elements to your story and I'm really curious about how you made that transition because you mentioned you're now working. at more of a startup, private equity backed. And so, you must have had a decision making process thinking, alright, KPMG is not for me or, or if you could go into how you made that decision and then, and then what this new transition has been like.

[00:35:32] Christine: Yeah. So, um, Big Four was not something that was specifically on, on my agenda or something I wanted to achieve. in life. In fact, um, if you'd asked me, I probably said maybe not. And sort of, you know, I've ended up there by accident. It was really interesting because one, it was a hell of a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

Um, you know, and I loved much of my time there, but ultimately I still came to the decision. It wasn't for me. And in particular, because of the kind of practice I run. Um, so my, most of my work has to be independent. And then when you've also got other parts of the business. You know, like audit that also have to be independent.

The amount of work that I had to turn down because. It was some sort of conflict. It would have been like 40% of my jobs. It also creates kind of an awkward dynamic with your clients because, you know, having come from an independent boutique firm, most of my clients would just brief me, but they just use me.

At KPMG, they're at least using one other expert because I couldn't. do all of their work. And it's just, you know, it's just not the best way to grow your revenue when, yeah, so, so I, you know, I'd figured out that big four wasn't, you know, the best place to run a forensic disputes practice. And so hence I was looking for, for alternative options.

Um, and, and for me, as I've mentioned, there's, you know, a few private equity firms. batch firms coming into the market. What, and equally, I looked at, you know, going back to a boutique, but for me, what was exciting about this opportunity was one, the culture I've just talked about. So while I'm ambitious, I'm actually not competitive.

So for me, it's about achieving sort of for myself. It's not about sort of beating someone else or, you know, being the best or even those that like, none of that is exciting to me. Um, and so I wanted to be at a place where, you know, Sort of mentioned one of the things I loved about Ferry Hodgson was just, you know, working in a team and work with people I love.

And that's sort of what I was looking for. And the culture here, I think offers that, but also that, you know, you don't get a lot of opportunities in sort of professional services at this scale to get in from the start. And that was exciting as well. So being able to, you know, hire the team from the beginning and, you know, help build sort of that culture in this market.

was, was an exciting opportunity. So yeah, no conflicts. And then sort of the culture is really just what I was looking for in a firm.

[00:37:55] Meryl: Is there anything you're missing not being in big four anymore?

[00:37:58] Christine: Look, I miss a lot of the people I used to work with, you know, again, you can sort of tell for me, that's, that's a real part of, you know, what I love about coming to work is that the opportunity, you know, to work with some incredible and really talented people.

I miss. That's not to say there's no one here, but we are still a very small firm in the context of the Australian market. And so I sort of miss the, you know, that the group that we have, um, you know, there are occasions where I miss certain things that we could do at KPMG that, you know, I can't do here because we don't have the resource or the scale to do it.

But, you know, it's sort of around the edges. It's mostly about, you know, the people that I had the opportunity to work with and look, hopefully some of the opportunity to work with again. At some point,

[00:38:46] Ad roll

[00:39:39] Meryl: I Gathered some questions from the audience and so they've shared a couple of questions that they'd like me to ask you The first one is what would be your biggest tip for someone that's looking to make partner in the next 12 months?

[00:39:51] Christine: I'm going to be super blunt about this. It's all about the revenue story and it's all about showing how you are bringing revenue into the firm.

Now, as I've said, different firms will have different focus on where that revenue comes from and so understanding, you know, what is that dynamic like at your firm because if you're going to present a story that's Got all of this revenue, but to sort of slightly borrow your analogy earlier, Meryl, it's, you know, all come from the tax partner in the next office.

That might be great at some firms. At other firms, that's not the story they want to hear. So, really understanding that, um, you know, the business case, in other words, what, you know, what's the value in making your partner? Absolutely. And then speak to someone who's been through it recently, if you can, at your own firm so that you can sort of get their perspective.

But try and find someone who most of the time, if they're on the selection committee, they'll be a little bit, you know, reticent to overshare with you about, but find somebody who used to be on it. Um, and, and see what they have to say. Um, you know, there's no substitute for understanding how the decision makers make their decision, you know, depending on your size of fit, you know, if you're at a big four, you're gonna have all of these guides and all of those sorts of things, but understanding who the decision makers are and how they make decisions really important.

So, you know, KPMG has a, you know, a partner committee, you know, knowing who's on that, what they're like as individual people. is actually important as well. If you're at a firm that does partner panels that might have random partners on it, same sort of thing. Find out who's on your panel and hey, you know Meryl?

What's she like? And sometimes just having that knowledge will help you present your case to them in a way that it's going to appeal to them as individuals.

[00:41:30] Meryl: The next one is a hundred years from now, what do you think the professional partnership model will look like?

[00:41:37] Christine: Wow. Oh, a hundred years from now. Um, Well, won't AI have taken all the future. Um, look, I, I think in this country anyway, and probably globally, um, the bigger firms are currently under pressure. Um, I genuinely think. We're probably about to go through another splitting cycle. I know EY has just called theirs off. But, you know, if I were going to place a bet, it would be, you know, again, much like there was sort of in the mid 90s, right?

All the firms went through a big sort of separation and carve out. I think we're going to go through that again. So probably in a hundred years, we'll be back to everyone gluing it back together again. You know, professional services goes through cycles, um, and that's, you know, it's sort of understanding what part of the cycle we're in, but yeah, you know, things like the PwC thing, you know, EY was kind of already there, just the regulator interest in the size of the big four.

Yeah, I think we're going to go through one of those split cycles again.

[00:42:44] Meryl: All right, and last question is, if you were making a recommendation to an accounting graduate, should they start at a big four firm, a mid tier firm, A boutique firm or a small suburban firm? Which one and why?

[00:42:58] Christine: Okay, so I can't give perspective on the small suburban firm, but I'm going to give a slight politician's answer and say it depends.

And the depends depends on... If you know what kind of work you want to do, so if you have a good sense that you're just going to love audit, then absolutely go for it for a big full firm initially, just the the depth of support you have in a a business, you know, you know, and I started in mid tier and mid tier was great.

I'm not the support you get as an auditor in a big four firm, there's just nothing, nothing like it. If you don't know what you want to do or you want to, um, you know, come into forensics or something specialized, then big four may not be the place for you because as much as they do have other divisions, it's a lot harder to change division.

than you think it is, and if you're in a division outside of audit, you're often doing things that are reasonably broad. And so, um, for example, the people that I worked with at KPMG who were doing disputes work with me were also doing all sorts of other forensic work. And so, for the years of experience they've got in my space, they're actually less experienced than someone from a mid tier or a boutique who has only done my kind of work.

So again, it kind of depends on how, what vision you have already for yourself in terms of sort of specialization. Because yeah, if you want to be in one of those core offerings, Audit, Tax, M& A, you know, big four, right? You got, you got to be on the most amazing clients. You're going to have support that, you know, even the mid tiers just can't offer you.

If you're not sure. And you just want flexibility that mid tier might be the place for you. If you are sure and it's something a little bit more niche, I would say go to a boutique that specializes in that thing because you're going to get a depth of experience that's often not available for that sort of work at a big four.

Um, and that's in part because of the complex problem, right? Um, if you're in a big four doing a lot of that boutique style work, you often have to be broader. to make sure you've got enough work coming through the door. So, in a boutique where you don't have that problem, you can just focus on whatever it is that you love, um, and get a lot of experience in that.

[00:45:19] Meryl: Yeah, great answer. All right, well, Christine, thank you so much. You've given a real insight because you've had such a varied career. You've had experience in, in many different types of firms. It's been awesome hearing your transparency and hearing about your journey. If listeners wanted to follow, follow along or find out more about you, I know you're active on LinkedIn, but is, where would you recommend that, that they connect or, or follow your story?

[00:45:44] Christine: LinkedIn is absolutely the spot. I am very active on there. I do respond to messages. So, um, yeah, hit me up. I'm more than happy to answer, answer questions. I'll point you in the right direction.

[00:45:56] Meryl: Great. Did you have any parting words before we wrap up?

[00:45:59] Christine: Um, no, look, I, Maybe just echoing probably a thing I've said a number of times now, look, I think that the secret to a great career is doing something you enjoy with people you love and wherever you find that, that, that, that's going to be a great place for you regardless of anything else.

[00:46:20] Meryl outro: I really enjoyed this conversation with Christine. It was lovely seeing her growth from a graduate accountant to partner and I enjoyed hearing Christine talk candidly about what it's really like to be a partner at a big four firm and some of the personal sacrifices needed to achieve professional success like that.

It was interesting hearing her talk about the power of the Big 4 brand and that clients will just assume that you know what you're talking about. And also that in her experience, there was less marketing and business development work required at a Big 4 firm, partly because of the brand and then also because of the volume of internal referrals because a firm like that has so many other divisions and so much business coming in the door.

Her story about autonomy at Feria Hodgson and that her team weren't morning people and so that often start around 10 a. m., I think that's fantastic and it actually surprised me. Um, I was not expecting that a firm with 150 people would have that kind of flexibility and I'm a big fan of adapting your work to fit your energy levels and around your other commitments.

So, I Kudos to Perrier Hodgson. I think that's awesome and I found it surprising. It was also interesting getting Christine's take on social events with clients and from the outside it might look like partners who are doing business development work are just always out having a good time. They're at drinks, they might be watching sporting events or on the golf course.

But actually, that's work and you're not there to have fun. You might have fun, um, but, but that's not the primary purpose. So awesome to have Christine on the show and get those insights. Look out for next week's episode with Jason Andrew where we're discussing a range of topics, including why he prefers incentivizing team members with bonuses rather than with equity and a behind the scenes look at his holding company strategy.