Alvarez & Marsal promotes five to managing director in Australia
Global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal has made its biggest managing director promotional round in seven years, with five individuals in Australia among the 88 worldwide.
Tax duo Yu-Wun Tang and Aaron Clarke step up to managing director in Sydney, alongside local Alvarez & Marsal CFO services leader Renzo Renting and Tim Denning of the firm’s transactions practice, while ESG leader James Spencer has also been promoted in Brisbane.
Up ten percent on last year, the firm noted that the number of its managing director promotions had more than doubled since 2020, with the 88 elevations further contrasting with the 24 made roughly a decade ago as an indication of the firm’s growth since then, including in Australia.
Taking a keener interest in the country from late 2022 and with Australian revenues now reportedly in the region of $150 million driven by a team of over 65 managing directors, much of that local growth over barely the past three years has come at the expense of the Big Four – including in respect to A&M’s latest cohort of Oz managing directors.
Clarke, Tang, Renting, and Denning all joined Alvarez & Marsal from Ernst & Young as senior and executive directors around the end and start of 2023 and 2024, with all previously having spent a decade or more at the Big Four firm. Denning also put in a stint at PwC, while Spencer had earlier crossed from KPMG, bringing an additional internal background from the superannuation industry.
As a member of Alvarez & Marsal’s transactions team, James Spencer now leads the firm’s ESG advisory line in Australia, specialising in pre-deal climate and human rights due diligence for investors as well as advisory for clients in areas such as decarbonisation strategy and regulatory compliance, including those in the agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing, transport, and energy sectors among others.
Having started his career at EY in the UK, Tim Denning specialises in buy- and sell-side financial due diligence and sale & purchase agreement support for private equity and corporate clients across a range of industries including tech, consumer, healthcare, and industrials, leveraging data analytics to support domestic and cross-border transactions across the investment life-cycle.
A former officer in the Dutch navy, Renzo Renting kicked off his consulting career with EY in the Netherlands and now leads the Australian CFO services offering within Alvarez & Marsal’s performance improvement practice, working with large and medium-sized clients in industries such as utilities, retail, logistics, higher education, and healthcare to improve the value delivered by their finance functions.
Having joined EY as a law and economics graduate, Aaron Clarke specialises in taxation matters in respect to real estate and infrastructure, especially as to energy transition projects, with a focus on public and private M&A, capital management, and advisory for various large investors and fund management institutions covering areas such as due diligence, structuring and modeling.
Also of a law and finance background, Yu-Wun Tang provides M&A expertise for private equity funds and corporates around tax due diligence, transaction structuring, documentation review, and the design of management incentive arrangements, with significant experience advising on technology and software deals along with transactions in the healthcare and agriculture sectors.
