“I always try to surround myself with people I believe are brilliant” - with Steve Tennant CEO, EMEA of Grant Thornton Advisors

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to the Renata's podcast. My name is Greg Dildjier and I'm delighted to be joined today by Steve Tennant, the managing partner of Grand Thornton Ireland and head of Grand Thornton Advisors EMEA. A new Grand Thornton had made progress in recent years, but I must admit I had no idea of the scale of that progress. They now have 3000 employees and revenues north of 350 million. In this podcast, we're gonna talk briefly about Steve's early life in Scotland, and how we got to come to Ireland and Grand Thornton, and of course about Grand Thornton's phenomenal growth in recent years. Mostly though, we're gonna talk about what's going on in Grand Thornton now, following the recent private equity driven merger with Grand Thornton Advisors in the US. Why did they do it? How did they do it? And what's the plan going forward? Very exciting times for Grand Thornton. So over to you, Steve, early days in Scotland. - Thanks Greg, and yeah, no great to be here. Delighted to be on board. - So the early days in Aberdeen, the journey from me began in Fort William, which is in the Highlands of Scotland. Basically, the bottom of Ben Nevis is where Fort William lands, and I was there for a number of years as a child, then my dad got a job in the oil rigs, Aberdeen, which is where I grew up as synonymous with oil. And we moved to Aberdeen. I went to school in Aberdeen. I started my football in Aberdeen. And yeah, that was the beginning chapter as I wanted to be a professional football player. And Aberdeen was my base for that. So I played football, soccer, as the Irish may call it. I played football for all my years into an up to a teen. I then signed a contract for Tundee. As I say, my dad was still working on the rig. So he was four weeks on and four weeks off. My mom was working in Aberdeen. And yeah, my life beginning in Aberdeen was to be a professional footballer, right? No thought of a constancy or anything at this stage. No, academically, I wasn't magnificent, to be honest. We were, we were. My school, I mean, again, and just even quickly on the upbringing, I was a great upbringing, really supportive family, brother and sister, or our twins, three years older. Mom and dad didn't have much, but we had a good environment to grow up in. And I was very happy with that. I wouldn't have known when I came to Mars when I was growing up too. I was fully focused. Well, fully focused and being professional footballer. OK, so what ended that? Talent, lack of it, unfortunately. And again, it's one of my mind, just a couple of it, one of my managers as I was growing up was my father. So my dad would be the coach. And he'd pick me, captain, send him and field all the time. So he wasn't one of these coaches, some dads who were really hard, and he was the opposite. He was built to be a superstar. So I think I believed it for a while. And I was on the books of Tundee, which is a professional club down there. And I did a couple of years just traveling up and down from Aberdeen. And I think I wasn't good enough. Never going to be good enough. Well, at least you had mentioned it. A lot of people remember themselves as being better than they were. No, not me. Not me. I kind of felt it was cheating. I was really loud. And maybe this is part of the future career. But I was a great community care. I was center half. I was always kind of captain of all the teams I had. So I'd good, good, good, good camaraderie with my fellow teammates. And that got me through a lot to be honest. I made me stand out and pitch a little bit. But yeah, there's a certain point you're just not good enough. OK, so after you accept the soccer was over. Went to college. Yeah, I went to college in Aberdeen. And again, there's a theme here. So I went to college in Aberdeen. And I studied business. I was lucky, I'd say, to get into that course. It was a good course. It was very social. I managed to get into sports with the college as well. So I was a great life. I lived at home for the first year of college, then moved out. And things were going great. It's there. And then that I met my now wife, Growne. I was 20, just about to turn 21. And I met Growne in the bar in Aberdeen. Growne from Ireland. Growne is from Ireland, yeah. The Irish, there was a big Irish contingent in Aberdeen for pharmacy dietetics. My worst is a dietician. And we met Growne when I was 20. And that was obviously a major milestone in my life. And now that was a big part of it. So did business studies. The third year in the business studies course was a placement year. And again, I was laid academically. I wasn't as focused as I should have been. So I was laid applying for my internship year. So I got what was left. And what was left was a job in PWC to do insolvency. I didn't know who the PWC were. And I certainly didn't know what insolvency was. Very good. OK. And how long did you persevere? Yeah, so it was a year. And then you were back to do your final year. So I did the year in insolvency PWC. I thought, this is magnificent, right? Everyone, you're in an office environment. Everyone's drinking sparkling water. It didn't feel like working on this. And it's kind of like, yeah, this is all right. I could do a bit of this. So I suppose the bug, I caught the bug and it started there in PWC. And then I went back to college. And I had a job offer to go back to PWC. But I fancy something a little bit smaller. So I joined the firm called Irish Sam, Straight Out of College. And I went there. Not to be an accountant. I joined it was in a currency practice. I joined just because it was the job. I was going to do insolvency. And then they were kind of like, you know, you should do your exams. And I did my exams. But not the traditional way. I did them in the evenings and weekends. And did my full day job, as opposed to training as a non-determinal. And how did the-- I know Michael McAterer, I think, was your link with Grant Thornton. How did you come across that? He comes later, I'd say, because we did Aberdeen for two years. And this is a good part of the story, actually. My wife finished college year later at the meeting, as she started year later. So she qualifies the dietician. And there's only one hospital in Aberdeen. And there wasn't a job there for Grinia. So we got to this stage. We were very serious. But it was like, if we're going to stay together, we're going to have to move somewhere together. And where I'm from in Aberdeen, like, no one leaves. Why would you leave? It's Aberdeen. Anyone want to leave Aberdeen. I liken it a lot when I tell the story about it to the movie Good Will Hunting, which is where they're in Southie and Boston. And it's Matt Damon, brilliant, and Ben Affleck. And it's like Matt Damon should leave Southie, but no one ever leaves Southie. No one ever leaves Aberdeen. So I had no intention of going until it was quite starkly put to me by Grinia, which is, look, if we're to stay together, I'm going. So you're going to have to come. And I think at first it was like, I'm not sure. And then, obviously, we went to Leeds for 10 years. Nine years. And Leeds was-- I went down to work from called Bigger Tilly there, continuing my professional career. Grinia worked in a big teaching hospital in Leeds. And we started life in Leeds, which is a great city. A really underrated city. We could have went to London, Birmingham and Leeds, which was Leeds. And it was fantastic, absolutely fantastic. We had the best years in our 20s, living in Leeds, great friends. And I was developed in my career. I got to senior manager in Bigger Tilly. And again, this is large in working in instruction and solvency. And I was supposed to get a little bit bored and a little bit-- well, there's the more to life than professional services. Is this for me? So at that point, I was approached by Mick Markter. And Mick had one of his side hustles was the other insolvency startup business. And they were looking for a management director in the UK. It was a chance for me to be part of a startup. Get out of the professional services base for a while. So sorry, he's in Dublin. And you're in Leeds, how did that go about? He flew to Leeds Bradford Airport. It came in through-- I think it was a mutual recruiter. We knew head-tunter. We just rang me off-spec. I don't know. I think there were other brilliant other job and knew that I had an Irish connection or lucky. But with whether brilliant or lucky, it landed. I met Mick. We got very well. And yeah, I left Bigger Tilly and started in startup. OK, and at what point did the Irish think come? Yeah, it was always on the card. So part of me doing that, taking the job was one of my unwritten contractual elements was that Mick would bring me back to Dublin. I'm basically growing up as keen on-- Very keen to come home. We will never start family. Irish women and families. We want to be close to the Grimes family. She's a good extended family in Ireland. So we were all coming home and home as Ireland. So I was happy with that. I'd been to Dublin a lot. And I'd been to the family at home weekly at the time. We loved it. Great people, sports mad, great environment, great for business, great for fun, crack. So there was no hesitation me coming to Ireland. I just had to find the right vehicle to get here and the Lincoln with Mick. I did two years in the startup. We sold the business. I came over and I started working with them. And it's important. So you've ended up there a number of years later as the managing partner of Grand Swarton. So it just so happened. I think 2009, it's only when you came in. Yeah. So obviously the economy had been stressed before that it's starting to get going again. What happened? I obviously referred to the numbers, the revenues, and then the employee numbers at the beginning. Staggeringly big. I was thinking earlier, if I was in a pub quiz, I would have-- I was asked those stats to be much lower. I would have thought that. So what happened in Grand Swarton in Ireland during that period? So that led to those numbers and lots of cracks. Lots happened and lots of good stuff. Obviously it was to start with the 2009 when I joined. My specialty was restructuring. 2009, there was a tough time. There was a lot of restructuring work to be done. And that continued for a number of years. So it was very busy in a professional sense. And again, when you're dealing with restructuring, it's stuff, right? Because some of the circumstances you are in are not pleasant circumstances. And then, certainly, it was very busy. It was tough at times. I came over to Ireland. And again, professional services, as you grow in it, you realize this a lot of networks. And people, you know, and how you build people and the clients that you work with, what that relationship-- like how deep is that relationship. I came over to Ireland, 2009. I didn't know anybody outside of my in-laws, effectively, and growing his friends, growing his family. And it was quite daunting. That might have been helpful in your job. Yeah. It was daunting in a sense, though. Because obviously, I didn't know anyone. I didn't have a big friend's network. And that's where sport comes back to, again, I did play football when I came over. One of the things throughout my life and career, which has been really interesting, is the transferability of sport to business. A business to sport. I think both the interconnectivity there is really strong. And it certainly stood to me when I came over to Ireland. I've had a lot of people's reports when I came over in 2009. You mix that with the people you meet through at Grand Thornton, the people you meet through. Work, clients, referers. A lot of my best friends and other people I met in that time. And it was great, because I had no option but to extend the network, but to meet people, because I was starting from scratch. So yeah, 2009, the restructuring work was very heavy. We built a big practice of restructuring, and at the tip of the point where Grand Thornton was known for restructuring the solvency for a number of years. Thankfully, it's moved on far from that now. But we were 2009, probably to 13, 14. We were known as a restructuring solvency house. And you want me to ask you, you see the same names coming up again and again, how do you get leadership in that market? What's the big-- We went for scale. So we had the time we had Paul McCann. We had Mick McAteer. We had Patty Dilling. We had myself Steve Tannen. You got Nick Eduardo, he came through. So we went for scale. We had more practitioners than we were for competitors. We got to market leading position. We had the biggest practice. We were doing probably some of the more interesting work. So you invest. You take-- Like all things in business, right? You've got to take risks. So you take the risk that people will want to use your service. And then you can provide a good quality service, which we did. So we went heavy and deep into the solvency market. And then obviously that practice grew very, very significantly, very quickly. And along with it, Grand Thornton started to rise. You asked to go back to your question and what's happened from 2009 onwards. It's a group of-- it's one of those unique circumstances where I think you have a group of exceptional people, exceptionally hungry and driven people who are of the same mindset who want to achieve something pretty special, right? It's like the sports team. Again, we're back there, right? And we might keep going back there. We are-- I was very lucky to be part of that. And it's just-- it's been great to be a part of it. It's still I'm a part of it. It was when you're living it, you don't really feel it. You don't really see it. But looking back on the outside now and when it's chatted to someone like you, Greg, and you're like, I didn't know Grand Thornton's this. It was an amazing journey, genuinely an amazing journey of really motivated people in the right direction. Amazing. And you then moved from restructuring, I don't know what precipitated the move into financial services. I think was it-- was that-- Yeah. Again, the one of change, I believe-- Imposter syndrome. Well, let's go there for a second, right? I think it gets a bad name. I like Imposter syndrome. I think you should always feel uncomfortable every-- Now, well, every two years, every two years, I like if you're not going into a room thinking, oh, God, do I belong here? Is this right for me? Is this the thing? Am I earning my keep here? I don't think you're challenging yourself enough. So I was a big believer and I'm a big believer of change and trying to challenge yourself in new ways on an ongoing basis. So restructuring, one, the market was dying down two. I was ready for change, as I say. I've been full-on for a number of years. And Grand Thornton hadn't expanded a range of financial services quite to match the growth that we've had. When we say financial services in this context, I presume you're talking about services provided to banks and insurance companies. It's right. You hadn't really much for a presence there. Not really at all. We get a little bit of other work, but nothing more than that, particularly in advisory. So yeah, your banks, your asset management houses, your insurance companies, aviation, we believe there's a good opportunity for the Grand Thornton brand to grow in that area. So I presume you just knocked on doors and matched people and just kept pushing and pushing and hired. Got a lot of good people around us. Because you can't, in financial services, it's an expertise game. You've got people to know what they're doing. You've got people who have lived, who have the worst stories and have lived the battles effectively through a heavily regulated industry. So we needed to do it up. We got outside help. And again, for example, the National Management Space Friends of Friends I have now for life. I met through there when my mentors was really, really strong and just introduced us to a network that we didn't know existed. So yeah, we built a practice. A lot of hard work, but we built a practice pretty much from scratch. Actually, you know, the phrase commonly is phrase the big forward and the countancy. Yeah. And you're somewhere underneath that show. You can tell me later where that is. I didn't be five, not the way we're going, but are you, were you and are you very conscious of that top four or the big four? Are you actively competing to actually get into the big four? Do you want it to be the big five or is it a thing? It's a great question. It is a thing. It's not a thing for me. But is the thing yet is, and we are the fifth largest in Ireland now. But we don't talk about that. I never talk about it. So the largest is revenue. Is it revenue? Go by revenue. The big four are just some great firms in there. I know all of the leaders of those firms. Med Mall, the great firms, we've all-- It's a small community, right? So we've all got friends, family, who are extended in those firms, and they're magnificent. Never want to be that. Grant Thornton doesn't want to be that. Grant Thornton wants to be in a space in its own. OK, space in its own, which is, I think, we can compete with the big four. We can compete in the mid-market space. We can compete in the multinational client space. And we want to create space entirely for us. And we're really comfortable with that. When you're getting up to 3,000 people, like is Nimble still a possibility? I think we're firm, growing up with an entrepreneurial spirit. I don't think that's leaving us. I don't want it to leave us. And certainly something that we'd be conscious of. Are we, as Nimble now, as we were in 2009? Not quite, but we're not far off. I thought, OK, it's funny. I was going to ask a question. I have a list of stuff. I'm just going to ask about the culture, but I think you've actually explained it in your last piece. So you were at a later point. You can tell me exactly when you were appointed managing partner of the firm. Was that a surprise? Did someone tap you on the back? You didn't think it was-- were you ready for that? Did you expect us? Did you want it? Yeah, expect to want our good ways to look at it. So I took off the job in the first John 2004. There was election process in 2023. I never had a huge thirst to be the boss, to be the managing partner of Grant Thornton. It certainly is the career evolved. And again, go back to the Impostor Syndrome piece. Change, challenge yourself. It became more of an option. And certainly there was a strong support from the partnership in '23 for me to run. Mick Mark Deere was before me and Mick was stepping down. So I had a few taps in the shoulder, right? I wasn't opposed to it. I was really having fun in the financial services world. The business was going great. So it wasn't a burning need to take on the job. But obviously you want to progress. And one of the things, one of the key drivers, aside from the tap and shoulders, was that I do think a profession is changing. And when we begin to that, I think it's changing no more than it ever has. And I thought, if there's ever going to be a time to do that job, it's now because you want to be holding the steering wheel as you're going into that store. It is, I think it's interesting. Michael McIntyre was there at the beginning of your journey and darling that is there. So obviously he's a mentor to you, I suspect over here. Yeah, we go very well. I mean, this is Mick. There's Paul McCann who was also part of that journey. Is there an hurdle now? Yeah, exactly. And then there's another guy, Paddy Dillon, who we grew up together in the firm. We came through the same journey. It's Paddy, who be now helping me with a lot of the global work that we're doing. OK, sir, were you 45 or something when you became managing partner? Yeah. 45 and you're 47. Yeah. No. You're definitely, not probably, definitely the youngest managing partner that I've come across in my career. Yeah, I don't know if that's the thing. Maybe it is great. I'll take your work. I think it is. I think when we get out of the strategy, you kind of need to be young to be doing what you're going to do. So let's talk a little bit about the merger, which is what we really want to talk about today. It's great. We've got some context about you and about Grant or Ireland. Well, what's really precipitated the change here is something that happened in the States where the new mountain, a very large private equity firm invested in Grand Torrent and Advisors in the US, which is not much of that happening over the its disruption in the real sense, but private equity coming into professional services. And that happened, I think, the audit piece was hived off to the side because the audit is more complex as regulation around that. So that couldn't be part of a private equity ownership. But that happened in the US and there's all exciting plans. And I'm sure a new mountain would explain very clearly what their strategy is. And I'm sure you know what visa probably living is right now. But following that, then I'm making this assumption that just kind of a European platform going to missing in that. And this is where you came in. So explain to us how all this happened. Yeah, go back to the start, right? So I took the job, January 24. The US completed their deal with new mountain capital, private equity investment. And again, you touched on, Greg. Private equity is in the professional service space. It wasn't five years ago. It is now, and it is in a big way. There's pretty much no firm in the US outside of the Big Four. And again, some of the Big Four are looking at restructuring options. Now some have looked at them in the past. We are now very much joined by every other firm in the US that has taken some form of capital. It might be a direct restructuring. It may be private equity, but there has been transformation in the US and now in the UK. And it's in Ireland, quite significantly as well. Because if new mountain hadn't come along to do this deal with your American friends, was there a chance of Rantornton Ireland actually doing this on their own, getting a private equity firm to invest in them, or would that have been a big jump? There's always a chance it wouldn't have been on the radar as quickly as it is now. We'd have to watch the evolution of the professional service industry in the last 18 months. And I think we would be looking at something right now. We would be pretty certain of that. But we went first, and we went first, because it came with new mountain in the US. They completed their deal in May 24. I got a call to go to Florida at the time around then. Some of us often paddy spun off to Florida start discussions around what an investment in Grant Rantornton Ireland could look like. And again, it was really, really, really tough. Because again, you think you know a lot of life. You think you know a lot of business. But this is a whole new world. And we're kind of flying off to America. A little bit of excitement, a little bit of world. And so why Ireland? Well, they could have gone presumably to numerous different affiliate groups. In the Grant Rantornton world, Irish firm is the star performer, right? So we punch way above the weight. We are the fifth biggest firm in the whole entire Grant Thornton network. And we have our growth that we talked about earlier. It's been noticed in the Grant Rantor world. So we are, we are seen to be a very progressive firm. So if there was a crown jewel in the network, I think that that's that's a good start point. The US Ireland's of great relationships. And that's a US Irish thing. As you know, we have all of such a great working relationship with the US firm. So that's another reason. And again, opportunity and time in this is part of it. And I presume a new mountain have very clear views about what they want to happen. They're very serious about the put in many hundreds of millions into this. And they know and have a very clear idea how the business can evolve. Presumably, you've learned some of from their vision plus whatever you have yourself. Tell me about how that evolves. Yeah. And maybe we'll touch on what the master plan is as well. I think it's evolved from, certainly, from when you mount into the US. So that when they first invest in the US, they would have looked at the Grant Thornton network globally and said, hmm, that could be interesting. But it probably wasn't a priority. The Ireland deal happened. We were very clear from an Irish perspective that we were going to do something in the space that we wanted to be global. And on that basis, we kicked on really early to say, we're happy to do this. And I'll talk about that process in a bit. When we made that decision, it was going to be conditional that we keep going. And we look at other Grant Thornton firms. Because ultimately, and this is guess back to the why, one, the industry is changing. But two, all professional service firms are set up as franchise models, right? So we're a network, combines, we all believe in our networks, and we all combine with our networks, and we collaborate. But we are individual businesses and individual geographies. I'm going to just ask you about sort of cultural things we talked about earlier. Are you trying to have a similar culture in the mall? Are they, are you allowed to have your own culture? You're allowed 100% to have your own culture. And again, it's a fair question, Greg. Cultural, because we have a language on culture, right? Every single firm has its own culture. And you wouldn't change it. You wouldn't break it. Like you're buying good businesses here. So, and you're investing good businesses. You don't want to break those cultures. Now, obviously, what you want is an overarching mission or ethos around that, where you can all buy into. And I think we have that within the Grand Thorns and Advisors platform. But the culture is remain local. The businesses are remain locally managed. That's really important. The autonomy and the management has. OK, local. OK, and your, obviously, you're going around Europe to different firms. Yeah, we're back to that franchise model, Greg. So the whole industry is built up with franchises. They've become a network. We're trying to take real that. So we all have common ownership. So we all have common equity and one business. And we'll have that local culture. We'll have that local independence. But we're all hooked together with common equity. I presume you could approach a non-Francher's non-Granthorne to business and bring them into the party. We can, and we are. And that's quite exciting, too. The first part of the strategy is, look less to see the really good Grand Thornton firms that are progressively thinking that want to be part of this. And we're having discussions with them. The next evolution phase will be in all of those markets. We want to follow on with investment, because we're back to the private equity and what they want. They want growth. And you might in capital is a growth private fund. So they're fueled by growth and the growth. And I think there's various, from our own resources, lots of different private firms, there's cost-cons. And you see it in, you flip. There's others. Yes, even though we're investing in the UK and German businesses. But you might in capital were absolutely perfect for us because of that growth. And the Grand Thornton Ireland story has all been about growth. OK, so a very obvious question then. It's just really exciting strategy and plan coming from New Mountain into you. You now have come through a number of years. Really good growth. Your partners are doing very well. They're very comfortable in their positions. And very happy at how they're going. I'm sure they've been well paid with the sort of numbers you're earning. They're in a very good place. And you're now coming to tell them that they're going to tear up the traditional partner model. And we're going to do something very, very different. That must have been a bit of a surprise to some people. Maybe a positive surprise for some. Maybe a negative surprise for others. A surprise? Yeah. No, I think surprise is probably not a bad word for it. I don't think it was in anyone's bingo card two years ago, two, three years, three years previous. But we definitely as a partnership. So all 100% of our partners vote in favor of what we did. And that's an important point. Because it's hard thing to do if you don't have everyone behind it. Do you have a rule that's to what you need in terms of support to get it over the line? Yeah, we do have an 80% because, like, to be honest, we wouldn't have done it. OK, if we weren't getting everyone on board. And from that perspective, that's important. Because then everyone's joined up in the mission again. And everyone can see the future benefit. It is a change. It's a change. And again, we talk about a partnership model that we used to have. You've got your partners. And then you've got your 3,000 people. The 3,000 people are a huge part of the business. So if they are the business, right? We are in professional services. We are a people business. And we are entirely relying on the talent of the people who are coming in the door every morning and go out of the door, be it virtually or in person. So we had to go on a journey where you bring the people because it's also a surprise for them. Sure. And they're like, well, what does this mean for me? We're comfortable with their partnership model. Does this mean is it better or worse for me in a personal level? Because as you know, business becomes very personal. And you have different ages, different ages. And we may talk to that as well. And then for the partners, you've got you have different ages of partners. But then for them, it's like, yeah, we've only known this. And effectively, this is completely different. It's completely new. So there's a lot of education went on during 20 at 23. A lot of deep dark discussions went on. And everyone had the forum to say their piece because I'm sorry, it was business as usual going on. It's been as usual. Business as usual went on. We actually interestingly, at the time we didn't know it. But we had a poor enough end to 23. And then into 24 when we looked at the private actual deal. So things picked up again. We are from a firm's perspective. From me being the person who was in charge, it was really important. The communication was 100% clear throughout. And we had to be at various times. We had to be secretive for bad reason. And just because this is, as you'll know, the kind of deals like this, they come back. There's a lot of sensitive stuff that happens in a very quick period of time. All of our partners were assigned NDAs, go through the process. But we wanted to share as much as we could, when we could both cut our partners. And more importantly, with our people. Okay, and tell me how you dealt with the audit situation, which has been sort of a central part of the business forever. Yeah, we spend a lot of time speaking to the regulators. Ireland is really well regulated when it comes to audit. And I mean that in a proactive manner. I think it's a really good setup that we have. So we engaged early. We had lots of discussions. And we made sure that the model that we're going to come forward with, which is, it's called an alternative practice structure where you have an audit practice and a separate entity to your advisory and tax practice. But we're all linked together. We're still Grand Thornton, we're one family and all the way that we work with our people and we work with our clients. It's united us. They don't feel like that. And from what's going to happen, no one here, not to tell. And that was absolutely a significant part of the mechanic. But you have to be very respectful of the regulation and the regulators. So everything we do had to be done in a manner that works. And again, what you'll see is it's kind of like we call it the behind-the-scenes plumbing, most professional services practices have behind-the-scenes plumbing that no one ever talks about with entities in different corporates and all that kind of good stuff. Be it for tax reason and for regulatory reasons. When we're doing a private equity transaction, which was well covered in the media, it becomes more of a focal point. So if you could describe it fairly clearly, now, obviously, we've talked about new mountain and the US. Now that you are ahead of EMBA, Grand Thornton advisors, well, in sort of plain English, what's your vision for the company in a few sentences? Yeah, thanks, Greg. I will do that. So vision is really clear, right? Professional services is a hard market to differentiate yourself. And we differentiate itself by the quality of service, by the specialties we have and by our culture. I believe by doing this, Grand Thornton advisors is going to differentiate itself. No one else is doing what we're trying to do. No one else is united in how they operate, as integrated in how they think. We can serve any client and any marker across the media and beyond within the Grand Thornton advisors platform in a way that we believe no other competitor can. So that is going to change. We believe the game of professional services and it's going to differentiate Grand Thornton. And do you expect, I'm sure the answer is everything, but I'm sure you're expecting to merge with some companies. I'm sure you're expecting to acquire some companies, perhaps with very complimentary skills to what you already have. And I guess you will be hiring individuals who have skills that you need for the new world that we're entering into. Things are changing like. Yeah, all three, I'll say Greg. I mean, you start with the people and then we'll work back from reverse. We have to, I think we have a more compelling proposition for our people now that we ever have. And that's a compelling proposition for talent that we want to bring in. We have global mobility in a way that's never been seen before. And you touched on earlier about age and the age demographic. Professional services is actually a very young game because you have a lot of trainees coming through, straight out of college, learning their accountancy profession, their tax profession, being a consultant. So our average age of employees is actually very low. And when you look at the younger demographic, certainly in the Irish business environment, a lot of our younger demographic want to travel. They want opportunities outside of Ireland. We're an island at the end of the day and they want to try and test themselves and different jobs and different markets. I believe we have a game changer. There were weekends there, right? You want to go to the Middle East, we'll get to the Middle East. You want to go to the US, we get you to the US. You want to go anywhere in Europe and we can now activate and make sure that you can get experience of a different culture. And presumably if you're pitching, say, for business locally, that you can bring in expertise from your. That's really quickly. 100%. That's a huge part of it, right? So if you're going to pitch in Belgium, for example, we might have the best Irish expert and the best Spanish expert going to meet the Belgian client. And we wish you win because again, at the end of the day, we can provide the service to the local market, you know. So the traditional, again, from my perspective, the traditional kind of model in thinking, always always the first thing is a lot of the accounts, firms tax, corporate finance, insolvency, restructuring. That was kind of maybe the four, maybe I'm missing one there. But what's it going to look like in ten years' time? What new core platforms are going to be in your business that aren't there now? So if you talk to anyone like me in my job, we'll all talk about tech and AI because it is a game changer. It is absolutely moving on from anything we've seen before. And we're all investing very heavily into the space because we think that that's going to be something that grows and grows in the future. So you're investing as a firm for your own use as well as investing, you know, in expertise to advice clients at both. Exactly. And both is an important thing to know there, right? So we need to get better at how we operate as a business and we need to make sure that we are leading edge AI as we possibly can be. And we're using it in the right manner while still keeping our quality in the forefront. But we all spin up to have to advise our clients better as they go through the journeys. And you need different expertise. You need more expertise than we've ever had before. And then when you dig into that a little bit deeper, it means we have to change the skill sets that we've always like, so we've always got the grads in trying to get the best grads, given the best training, make sure they enjoy it, make sure they learn. But largely you're training accountants. That evolved over the last five years when our training accountants and consultants and tax professionals. And it's evolving. It was evolving that we almost have-- and Grant Thornton just now-- we probably have slightly more non-accountants than accountants in our three-thirds employees. That is going to evolve even further. We're now into data scientists. We're now into software engineers. We're now into tech specialists. We're into an area that is new and has been growing for probably less 12 months. But it's new. And what does the Grant Thornton of five years time look like? I couldn't tell you. But a lot of casual dresser may be my guess half. I restarted that journey already. And I'm probably guilty of helping it. But it's definitely changing. Again, I'm a total amateur, but I'm reading up about you. Obviously, AI is a huge thing. And there's so many pieces hanging out of that in terms of assurance and all kinds of things. But obviously, cyber and cyber security is another monstrous issue, which is coming. And ESG is still there, despite the state slowing down a bit. Regulation, data. It could be a very different looking firm. Yeah, it's just only like you're in one of our 900 minutes, because that's exactly what we're talking about. There are all the topical issues that we're addressing in a daily basis. The ESG is an interesting one, because obviously, the whole market was gearing up. And then there was a pause with some regulatory changes. I think a lot will come back. One of the big things, when we talk about ESG, and then you talk about diversity and inclusion, bring that back to our people. We combined with the US firm. The US, as you know, has a very outspoken president. Sure. And presidents will come, and presidents will go. But one of the big concerns of the Irish employees-- and I get it. It was completely right to be in service. But we're proud of our DNI. We pride ourselves on it. And we do it to this day, and we'll go forward. What does that mean? It's under pressure in the US, and it's getting canceled here, left, right, and center. And some of our competitors are making bold statements to say that they're not going to do any DNI anymore. It's absolutely core to the Irish firm. And all this good to mean so. And when it comes to ESG, we have a really, really strong focus on sustainability. Not just in how we server clients, but how we run ourselves. And it's going to be core to Grand Thornton, Ireland, forevermore. Just a couple of things. Are new months going to sit on your board? No, they sit in a topical board of which I would be the representative of the Irish firm. But it's interesting, because for a lot of your listeners who deal with private equity, we were terrified. I was terrified. I don't want private equity. That was smart. It took me all of my business. I don't say too much. Like, we're not as-- Yeah, we'll be able to upset it, just say bad things. But it's not true. They are really smart. But they let us run our business entirely. I have zero decisions that I've made this year and the Irish business has been interfered with by private equity. And that's because they're smart. They know that they've got a really good business here. So they're not going to interfere with that and try and break it, right? So from a business operational perspective, it has been really interesting to work closely. We've worked very closely with the Monet Monet, because they've got a huge skill set there. And we've done what we're going to hopefully complete somewhere between 18 and 20 deals this year and the calendar year. There's a lot of deals for a business, any business. It's certainly a lot of deals and they're big deals. They're not insignificant deals in a short window. And we would not have been able to do that without the firepower of New Mexico. But not just the firepower, obviously, is very important, but the intellectual capital. It's a kind of experience that they have to introduce us. It's fantastic. OK, so we now have covered the final kind of topic that we were going to talk about. Just move off of the new mountain deal for the moment. And just talk about a few general things. But when I met you last week, we spoke generally about the whole remote working debate. And there's a bit of a debate going on as we know. We've had some well-known people coming out and saying that they think it's drifted a bit far towards home rather than work. And there's quite a lot of bite back from that. It's causing a little bit of unrest a little bit. How are you and how are Grand Thornton on remote working? Yeah, one word that start with is flexible. And that is a word that's really, really important to how we look at where we work and how we work. We are largely in the office. A lot of the majority of our people have been in the office three, four days a week. Maybe one day at home, we don't have a rigorous policy. We haven't gone there. We haven't felt the need. Hopefully everyone does what they need to do to get by. We're constantly have to look at that because if we think it's not going the right way, then you might have to intervene and set up policy. We're not there yet. But we're all, again, we're always looking at. We're happy that most of, again, there's two sides to this, right? Because the demand and thirst of people in the office. Why? You're after, as a business leader, after myself, why? Is it because I just want the kingdom around me and I want everyone to come in? So I have to come in. Is it because it makes me feel better? Because if we have a company, you might be doing that. We have to look at what's right for Grand Thornton and what's right for Grand Thornton is definitely flexibility. Now, when we get to certain pockets of people, there might be some people who barely come into the office and that might be okay. That, generally, there might be good business reason for that. And it might suit the person and suit the business. But when we get to perhaps our younger core, and we're back to the age demographic, those great people in the '20s, I do believe that they should spend the majority of the time in the office. That's where you learn. That's where you have fun, right? Some of the friends I made in the office in my '20s are the people who have stayed with me for the rest of my life. So I could tell you this Greg, I would not be sitting here today if I had the ability to work from home in my '20s because one, my talents are not talents that you would see when you're working from home in the spreadsheet, right? They're different talents. So I think I'd be doing myself at the service too. I'd be so easy distracted. I'd have a match on the telly. I'd be, this is just personal to me. So I don't think it would have worked for me. Now, that doesn't mean it doesn't work for some people. It does, but from a grand thorn to perspective, I'm happy that the business is doing very well. Just now, I'm conscious that as a responsible employer, we constantly have to look at it because Danis, Michael, those big figure heads of Irish business are quite spoken on the matter and that gets a lot of debate, both in such organizations like us and outwith organizations like ours. - This has probably been asked before, but I will just do it anyway. We'll test you on it. Like, you're a leadership style. It's kind of obvious to listen to you, but how would you describe your leadership style? - Yeah, my leadership style. I am a huge believer that nobody is good at everything. So my success and my career, I'm 100% certain has been largely based around the people who I've had around me. - Yeah. - So I've been surrounded by incredibly talented people and the right people at the right times, definitely, and a lot of luck involved in that. But I would be very glad with my leadership style. I'd be very open to other views. I think it's a big, big thing to be able to take more inputs and to allow you to make a better decision. I don't know anyone who can't make a better decision with more inputs, some inputs you might not agree with, but there's still inputs. So I 100% would like to think and again, it's easy for me to say what my leadership style, it's more interest for others who work with me to say what it is. But I'm hugely driven. I would be obsessive about Grand Thornton. Again, a big believer that you don't get in business and professional services particularly, you don't get exceptional reward without exceptional effort. I work really hard. Work ethic is really important to me. I'd be seven days a week. If you're going to get to a level within any business, I don't think you get that with just a normal level of effort. So I would be committed to what I do. I'd expect that of others around me. But I'd like to think I listen. And I would always try and surround myself with people who I think are brilliant. Well, I couldn't say I know you well, I've met you twice, but in my two meetings with you, you're an energy giver. You're certainly a creator of energy, thank you. Which is really really important. There's one last thing I was going to ask you, I'm pretty sure to put it in the AI thing. I know you use co-pilot. Yep. So this is all a bit random here now, but we're nearing the end. Co-pilot, how's that working for you guys? Yeah, really good. So we as part of our investment-- It's Microsoft data. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, as part of our investment, we have made sure that every single employee has access to co-pilot, proper access to co-pilot. And we want it to be a part of that. Not just for doing a Google search and instead of Google, we want it to be ingrained in how they do their job every day. And it's not just a one-dual chat GPT co-pilot. That's not going to get that done. We need to, for audit firm, for a tax firm, for advisory firm, we need to give tools that are going to make our jobs easier. More efficient, more interesting. We're back to the people dynamic. And again, we need to make sure that everyone is enjoying their job, their learning on their job, and they're serving the clients well, right? So to do that, they have to have the best tools. It's a competitive environment. Professional services are really competitive space. So if Grant Thornton is logging behind there, someone can walk out of that door and go to a competitor and not come back. We can't allow that to happen. So they're learning and development. And to be honest, it's going to be more of a focus now. I think with everything that's happened in the last 12 months, we've probably missed a beat on that a little bit. We need to more in the focus of learning and development, particularly in the space of AI. So we can try and create a generation of people who are really fluent in everything to do with AI, not just co-pilot, but the other tools that we use within the business. It's a pretty good spot in which to end, this has been fascinating and really enjoy the conversation. And thanks a lot for coming. Thanks very much for that. Thank you.