Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull joins board of Findex

Six months after being appointed a senior adviser at global investment firm KKR, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has landed a board role at Findex, a national accounting and consulting group that is part of KKR’s portfolio. 

Turnbull served as Australia’s 29th prime minister from September 2015 to August 2018, when he was ousted in a leadership battle. Since, he has enjoyed time off, but in June last year he joined Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) – a US-origin private equity firm that has been responsible for some of the biggest buy-out deals in history.

He joined a team of around 20 senior advisers at KKR, most of which are former politicians and tier-one CEOS, who provide counsel on economic, public policy, regulation, societal and human capital developments around the world. Other KKR senior advisers in Asia Pacific include former Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford, former Singaporean minister Lim Hwee Hua and former HSBC group chairman John Bond.

As part of a leadership reshuffle, Turnbull has now been appointed to the board of directors of Findex, with 110 offices across Australia and New Zealand one of the country’s five largest accounting and consulting groups. 

Earlier in his career, Turnbull worked in the legal sector and held several high-profile corporate roles, including at investment bank Goldman Sachs, before entering politics as a local member of parliament in 2004. The University of Sydney  graduate served twice as leader of the Liberal Party, firstly from 2008 to 2009 when he was also Leader of the Opposition, and a second time from 2015 to 2018. 

Other newly appointed board members are former Deutsche Bank managing director Diane Raposio and Garry Hounsell, the former chair of department store Myer. The trio are all representatives of KKR, which holds a 40% share in Findex since 2014. According to Findex, the appointments better position the firm to grow and realise its growth agenda. 

In 2014, shortly after KKR’s investment, Findex acquired the local operation of Crowe Horwath. In April last year, Findex retired the Crowe Horwath brand in Australia and New Zealand.