Helen Hamilton-James joins KPMG to lead Greater Western Sydney
Big Four accounting and consulting firm KPMG has recruited rival Deloitte’s former Parramatta office managing partner Helen Hamilton-James to lead its own Greater Western Sydney practice.
Hamilton-James departed Deloitte last May after having started her career with the firm as a graduate in London more than three decades ago. Among a long list of leadership roles, she headed the firm’s Western Sydney business for six years from 2019.
Now she pops up at KPMG as its market lead for a Greater Western Sydney region which has become an increasing battle-ground among the Big Four in recent years, including as to KPMG’s own modern new hub in Parramatta launched three years ago.
“What drew me to KPMG is the genuine commitment to Greater Western Sydney and to mid‑market and private businesses – the organisations which create jobs, back local communities and drive real economic momentum,” Hamilton-James said of making the switch. “That focus, alongside the investment in developing local talent, made this an exciting move for me.”
A law graduate of University of Aberdeen, Hamilton-James immediately went to work at Deloitte in the UK branch before arriving with the firm downunder in 1997 and being made a partner in 2004 to then lead its assurance & advisory practice in Western Sydney and Canberra. Later, she spent two and a half years as office managing partner for Deloitte in Papua New Guinea.
In 2017 she returned to Western Sydney as COO for Deloitte Private, the firm’s middle-market business, and was appointed regional managing partner two years on at a time when PwC was also entrenching itself in Parramatta and Ernst & Young was about to enter the fray, with BDO to soon follow. Meanwhile, KPMG last year celebrated its local 10-year anniversary.
Having first set up shop in 2015 with a team of around 40, that number has since grown more than tenfold to 450-plus employees, while KPMG’s mid-market Enterprise division is also currently booming despite the wider slowdown. In a post to LinkedIn to mark her arrival, Hamilton-James noted Greater Western Sydney as being Australia’s third‑largest regional economy.
She also described it as one of the country’s most dynamic; “The combination of major infrastructure investment, a fast‑growing and highly skilled workforce, and an incredible depth of entrepreneurial talent means the region is well placed to lead the next wave of growth, particularly across advanced manufacturing, med‑tech, defence, agribusiness, and green technologies.”
