Meet the seven consulting partners from PwC who joined MinterEllison
MinterEllison has unveiled its line-up of risk & regulatory partners which the law firm poached from PwC earlier this year, the seven recruits in total combining for over 130 years of experience.
Among them are former executive board member Nicole Salimbeni, most recently PwC’s financial services and consumer business leader, and Malcolm Shackell, the former chief operating officer of its risk consulting practice.
A mix of PwC veterans and more recent additions, the remaining MinterEllison partnership recruits include former financial crime practice leader Peter Forwood, alongside Ashley Rockman, Edwina Star, Mark Rigby, and Garth Williams.
Having been first announced back in May and almost doubling MinterEllison’s advisory partnership numbers to 18 in the single hit, the seven Sydney-based recruits bring expertise in governance, risk & compliance, anti-money laundering (AML), and fraud & forensics together with data & analytics, and will work alongside the firm’s legal professionals to provide a complementary offering.
“We are thrilled to welcome these new partners, each at the top of their game in these critical segments,” stated MinterEllison CEO Virginia Briggs. “Their unparalleled expertise and insight will undoubtedly enhance our ability to not only meet the current demands of clients but also to help them thrive in their increasingly dynamic and complex operating environments.”
New partners
Salimbeni had been with PwC since 2007, and served as the firm’s long-term head of risk consulting prior to being appointed financial services & consumer business leader and joining the executive in 2020. Initially, it was reported she would lead the firm’s governance & structures reform program in the wake of its tax scandal, but was left off the board in a subsequent overhaul.
A specialist in forensics, regulatory investigations and financial crime, Shackell meanwhile served as risk consulting COO at PwC during his almost two and a half decades at the firm, while Forwood led the financial crime practice within the risk consulting division, himself spending close to two decades at PwC. Another risk & compliance expert, Rockman spent over three decades there.
Adding to that list is two-decade PwC risk consulting veteran Edwina Star, while Mark Rigby joined the firm in 2011 after six years in security & intelligence operations with the Attorney-General’s Department. Garth Williams is effectively the odd one out in having only joined PwC as a partner in 2021, crossing form the ANZ bank with an earlier career stint at Clayton Utz.
Speaking on the PwC raid in May, consulting managing partner Victoria Hepburn said; “While MinterEllison will always fundamentally be a law firm, we will continue to redefine the boundaries of what it means to be a contemporary one in response to our clients’ changing demands. Ensuring they benefit from an integrated offering has long been a core part of our growth strategy.”