BDO adds Hellen Thomas and Nabil Hossain to partnership in Canberra

Professional services firm BDO has recruited two new advisory partners for its fledgling office in Canberra, with Hellen Thomas and Nabil Hossain joining Paul McDougall and Ridhish Arora.

Thomas crosses to BDO as a partner after the past seven years at Protiviti, before which she spent time at PwC and Ernst & Young, while Hossain also brings a background at PwC and has most recently served as a director at Deloitte Consulting.

The pair join existing partners and former colleagues Paul McDougall and Ridhish Arora, who were respectively recruited from Scyne and Sayers (now Tenet) upon the launch of BDO’s Canberra office last August after earlier being partners at PwC and Deloitte.

“The appointment of Hellen and Nabil brings a great depth of experience and enhanced skill base to our local presence in Canberra,” said McDougall, who leads the practice. “We really have the best of both worlds in local knowledge and presence in Canberra, the scale of a national network, as well as the ability to draw on expertise from across BDO’s global offices.”

Hellen Thomas adds two and a half decades worth of experience advising government and public sector clients alongside those in financial services, education, and energy & utilities industries on risk and governance matters, with a particular focus on cybersecurity and business resilience and additional expertise in areas such as digital transformation and program assurance.

An accounting and information tech graduate of Southern Cross University, Thomas spent the best part of a decade at Ernst & Young earlier in her career, before five years at long-standing Lismore accountancy TNR and time at PwC in Canberra ahead of her switch in 2018 to the local office of Protiviti, where she has served as a managing director for the past four and a half years.

Nabil Hossain crosses after seven years at Deloitte Consulting, including the past five as a director, before which he spent eight years at PwC following its 2010 acquisition of Canberra-based accountancy WalterTurnbull, where he kicked off his career two years earlier upon the completion of a commerce degree in accounting and finance with the Australian National University.

As a CFO advisory partner at BDO, Hossain in his new role will focus on serving federal government agencies on their transformation agenda with planning, funding and delivery support, leveraging his expertise in areas such as business case development, funding and charging models, budgeting and cost management, ERP, and finance function improvements.

Canberra

In addition to Thomas and Hossain, BDO noted it’ll also soon be onboarding an experienced partner and additional hires to bolster its defence sector capabilities, while national chair David said the firm is discussing further growth opportunities and the local talent pipe-line while reiterating the potential BDO saw in the Canberra market due to continued demand for independent perspectives.

“We have demonstrable capability in the work we do for the public sector, and we’re excited to bring that expertise and further grow our team in Canberra,” Fagan said.“The team has been very successful to date since we opened last year, and we’re committed to building a lasting presence in Canberra by making significant investments in our people and premises.”