Pitcher Partners adds six new partners across offices and practices
Accounting and consulting firm Pitcher Partners has added six new partners across the country, including two in Sydney and one each in Newcastle, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
Tax advisors Elizabeth Jools and Juliana Kee have both been promoted in Sydney after roughly a decade each at the firm, having earlier spent time at KPMG and Moore Stephens, while Newcastle-based private client adviser Bruce Grieve joined from Bentleys in 2024.
In addition, Levi Holdsworth (private business & family advisory), Jack Mackintosh (business advisory & assurance), and Alex Pollock (corporate finance), have been bumped up in Adelaide, Melbourne, and Brisbane, also after around a decade apiece at Pitcher Partners.
The firm stated: “Across five practices and five cities, these appointments reflect our commitment to developing professionals who understand that the most valuable thing an advisor can offer goes well beyond technical expertise, extending to a genuine and personal engagement with the challenges, opportunities and concerns that matter most to the people and businesses they serve.”
Elizabeth Jools
Macquarie and UNSW commerce & accounting graduates, Jools, who also earned a law degree, joined Pitcher Partners in 2015 after spending an earlier eight years at KPMG. while Kee, who has since gained a taxation masters from the University of Sydney, likewise joined the firm’s local tax practice in the same year after close to five years at merger partner Moore Stephens.
Jools took the opportunity of her ascension to partner to throw some shade at her former employer; “When I came across it was like I found my home and my purpose,” she said. “People were genuine, there was a real personal touch, and you felt it immediately. At a big firm the focus can shift very quickly to revenue, and you lose that culture, but at Pitcher you simply do not.”
Juliana Kee
A per the firm, Jools, who specialises in corporate tax with a particular focus on cross-border advisory and compliance, was drawn to tax precisely because it sat at the intersection of the two disciplines she wanted to pursue, with Kee meanwhile specialising in financial services taxation and M&A advisory after having actively pursued the discipline at the firm upon graduation.
“I was one of the very few cadets who specifically requested a tax role,” Kee said. “I don’t think they were necessarily looking at the time, but they interviewed me and here I am, and I have a client who has marked every milestone with me since I started, from graduating my bachelor’s degree through to my CA, my master’s, getting engaged, getting married, and having a baby.”
Jack Mackintosh
An internal subject matter expert for mandatory sustainability reporting, newly-appointed business advisory & assurance partner Jack Mackintosh is another to have joined Pitcher Partners upon graduation, in 2014 following a commerce degree from the University of Melbourne. He later spent eighteen months checking out RSM in Canada, before boomeranging back to Pitcher in 2023.
As per the firm: “Jack is an experienced generalist with specialist depth across audit and assurance, financial reporting, technical accounting, sustainability reporting and taxation services. He has supported private businesses, public companies and not-for-profit organisations with a broad range of audit and advisory services throughout his career in Australia and North America.”
Bruce Grieve
Grieve’s path to private client advisory partner in Pitcher’s Newcastle & Hunter branch is notably different from his fellow promotees, having only joined the firm in mid-2024 after six years between Bentleys and a pair of local financial services boutiques and an earlier decade-and-a-half in financial planning in South Africa, where he graduated with a commerce degree in 2001.
Pitcher Partners: “With deep knowledge in wealth management and behavioural finance, Bruce crafts financial plans that leverage key factors to help clients meet their goals. His clientele is diverse, encompassing professionals, business owners, and successful families, all benefiting from his comprehensive financial planning and wealth management services tailored to their unique needs.”
Levi Holdsworth
Meanwhile, Levi Holdsworth, now a private business & family advisory principal in Adelaide (differing corporate structures among the mid-tiers in different states often means varying titles with the same level of seniority), and newly-promoted Brisbane corporate finance partner Alex Pollock have both spent the majority of their careers at Pitcher partners, after earlier spells elsewhere.
Holdsworth discussed his experience growing up in an SMB environment; “My father did not experience too many lows, but I understood from watching him that business does not stop at five o’clock. The clients I work with are not clocking off with their employees. They are going home thinking about what tomorrow looks like, and whether they can fulfil the next contract.”
Alex Pollock
Holdsworth, who works with HNWIs, family offices, entrepreneurial start-ups, and SMBs in industries such as property and hospitality joined in 2017 following an earlier commerce degree at La Trobe, while due diligence, valuations, and deals specialist Pollock completed his commerce degree at the University of Queensland and joined the firm’s Brisbane branch in the same year.
On Pollock, Pitcher Partners stated: “Alex began his career in audit, spending eight years in that discipline before transitioning to corporate finance. He now advises clients across the full spectrum of buy- and sell-side activity, from ASX-listed and private equity-backed corporates conducting diligence on acquisition targets through to founder-led businesses preparing for or managing a sale.”
