RSM names Steve Healey as new Brisbane managing partner

Bringing a three-decade background in tax and accounting, Steve Healey has been appointed as RSM’s new Brisbane managing partner.

Mid-tier accounting and consulting firm RSM has tasked Steve Healey with leading the firm’s next stage of “evolutionary growth” in Queensland. Healy takes over from Andy Graham, who has held the role for the past eight and half years, and follows Alasdair Whyte in the leadership refresh, with Whyte becoming Perth managing partner in January.

While Whyte has been with RSM for over 15 years however, Healy is a relatively new face, having only joined the firm as a partner in 2019 to establish its tax services division in Queensland.

Previously, he was a partner with Grant Thornton and national head of its Tax & Private Advisory Services division, before which he was the national president of the Tax Institute and the lead partner for Deloitte Private in Queensland.

Altogether Healey spent just shy of a decade at Deloitte, also serving during that time as Queensland lead partner for Tax Services and for Corporate & International Tax. He joined Deloitte in 2006, following a two-year stint as a tax partner with BDO. Before that, he spent over a decade with PwC, adding up to almost thirty years of accounting experience he brings to his first three-year term as RSM’s Brisbane managing partner.

During the course of his career, Healey has advised some of Queensland’s most prominent public and private businesses, including on matters such as corporate and international taxation as to transactions and IPOs, as well as having contributed to a number of significant white papers for several leading Australian accounting and taxation bodies – with a focus on the impact of digital and technical disruption to these industries.

“Steve is a strong leader with exceptional energy and tenacity,” said RSM’s National Chairman Jamie O’Rourke, one of only six chairs to have served throughout the firm’s 100-year local history (with its centenary anniversary to be celebrated on the 27th of March).

“He is well-known in the Brisbane business community and has a strong commitment to developing our people and building exceptional client relationships,” O’Rourke added.

“As our Australian firm celebrates its 100th year in business and supporting businesses across the nation, it is a privilege to be able to lead the continued evolution of our Brisbane office,” Healy said in response. “It’s a really exciting time to be leading our Brisbane practice which has been fortunate to experience remarkable growth over the last few years.”

Healey isn’t shy when it comes to ambition either, stating, when asked about his plans for the Brisbane office and where he’d like to see it by the end of the decade, that he envisions RSM as the go-to mid-tier firm outside of the Big Four, in terms of for both clients and talent. Presently, RSM at a national level sits behind Grant Thornton, with BDO, and Crowe and Baker Tilly affiliates Findex and Pitcher Partners also higher up the list revenues list.