Grant Thornton promotes ten new partners ahead of Australian sale vote
Professional services firm Grant Thornton has made ten partnership promotions across the country and its service lines as it readies to sell itself to private equity disruptor New Mountain Capital.
The bulk of the partnership promotions were made within Grant Thornton’s private enterprise division, with Mia Ni and Dharav Gandhi elevated in Sydney, and Noel Verma, Stacey Smith, and Sara Chen added in Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne.
Also elevated were audit & assurance pair Hannah Hollingworth and Jane Gregg in Melbourne and Adelaide, new financial advisory and tax partners Tianne Nagy-Jones and Jethro Byrne in Melbourne, and Brisbane-based Japan desk leader Shoko Arakawa.
“Watching team members achieve significant milestones is one of the most rewarding aspects of being CEO at Grant Thornton Australia,” said Grant Thornton Australia CEO Said Jahani. “Each of these individuals brings unique strengths and diverse backgrounds to their leadership, demonstrating both a high-performance mindset and dedication to delivering excellent client service.”
According to numbers provided by the firm, its latest cohort of partnership promotees, along with recent external recruits such as Elna How, takes its overall count to the very brink of 200, with 40 of those added over the past twelve months alone – three quarters of them via promotions. The firm also said it’s on track for double-digit growth to $420 million in its current financial year.
New partners
An overview of the new partners and their backgrounds:
Mia Ni has been with Grant Thornton in Sydney since 2017, having previously gained experience at Hall Chadwick. She specialises in delivering integrated outsourced CFO and tax advisory solutions.
Office colleague Dharav Gandhi joined the firm’s tax advisory team in 2014, having earlier worked at both Grant Thornton and Deloitte in Mumbai. He is a core member of the firm’s India practice.
A strategy, finance, performance, and transformation consultant for mid‑market organisations, Noel Verma joined Grant Thornton in Adelaide in 2018 after more than five years spent at PwC.
Stacey Smith is a three-decade company veteran based in Brisbane, where she provides a broad range of business and tax advice to privately-owned family groups, investors, and individuals.
A one-time audit trainee at KPMG in China, Sara Chen joined Grant Thornton’s tax team in Melbourne at the start of 2022 after kicking off her career at local accounting boutique TF Partners.
Also based in Melbourne, Hannah Hollingworth becomes an audit & assurance partner after just over a decade and a half at the firm, where she specialises in the agribusiness and consumer sectors.
Another audit & assurance promotee, Jane Gregg been with the firm for over two decades, originally starting out in some place in Canada called Moncton before moving to Adelaide in 2016.
A corporate tax specialist, Jethro Byrne rejoined Grant Thornton in Melbourne in 2022 after earlier leaving the firm for a role at the ATO, before which he spent seven years between PwC and HMH.
A member of Grant Thornton’s restructuring & insolvency team in Melbourne, Tianne Nagy-Jones becomes a financial advisory partner after joining the firm as an accounting graduate in 2011.
Lastly, Shoko Arakawa heads Grant Thornton’s Japan practice. She joined the firm in Brisbane in 2016 after thirteen years at Ernst & Young in Australia and the US, including in New York and Los Angeles.
Grant Thornton Advisors
Meanwhile, having been put forward by the board, Grant Thornton’s local partnership is soon due to vote on the firm’s reported $1 billion sale to the US-based private-equity backed breakaway Grant Thornton Advisors, with the Australian Financial Review calculating that current partners could be set for an average $5 million individual windfall in cash and shares.
