Deloitte Asia Pacific executive roles filled by Oceania leaders

The Oceania practice of professional services firm Deloitte has seen a number of its leaders elevated to Asia Pacific duties, filling the gap left by a trio of Australians recently promoted to the global level.

A recent round of senior global appointments featuring a trio of Australian leaders has seen Deloitte now fill a number of fresh vacancies in its Asia Pacific executive, with the Oceania region once again well represented, including through the promotion of Dave Kennedy to regional Chief Operations Officer.

Fellow Sydney-based partner Victoria O’Halloran has been recruited as Asia Pacific general council, while Sonia Breeze of the firm’s Auckland office takes up the Chief People & Purpose post.

A three-decade company veteran, Dave Kennedy first joined Deloitte in Johannesburg in 2000, working his way up the ranks to first head up the South African firm’s Tax & Legal and then Risk Advisory practices before crossing to Deloitte’s Sydney office in 2015 as risk advisory strategy lead. Kennedy’s time with the Australian practice then mirrored that of South Africa, first becoming Risk Advisory national managing partner before then taking on the Tax & Legal role.

Since 2018 he has served as Risk Advisory lead for the Asia Pacific, and now replaces Deloitte Japan partner and former chairman Nobuyuki Nagata as regional COO – extending the ‘Australian’ influence in the region following last year’s appointment of David Hill as APAC CEO.

In addition to Hill, who took over from inaugural CEO Cindy Hook and remains based in Adelaide, Deloitte’s APAC Consulting division is led by Melbourne-based partner Rob Hillard

A partner since 2017, Sonia Breeze has spent close to two and a half decades at Deloitte in New Zealand across two stints, returning to its Auckland office in 2012 to lead the firm’s national human resources function. Breeze has since leveraged that experience in her more recent role as head of the firm’s external human capital consulting practice, but will now take over as APAC Chief People and Purpose Officer as former incumbent Elizabeth Faber moves into the global role.

Based out of Sydney, recent Deloitte returnee Victoria O’Halloran meanwhile commences her appointment as general counsel for the Asia Pacific following Brisbane colleague Belinda O’Toole’s ascension to the global top role as the first person outside of the US to hold the post. O’Halloran has amassed more than 25 years of financial services industry-focussed legal experience, most recently at ASIC, and previously spent eight years at Deloitte between 2004 and 2012.

Now covering some 91,000 staff and accounting for more than a sixth of the firm’s $60 billion in global revenues, Deloitte’s Asia Pacific entity was first formed in 2018 via a merger of its businesses in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, China and Japan, with Deloitte in Korea later joining the fold. One of those, the Southeast Asia branch, has also undergone a significant recent leadership change, as Eugene Ho takes over from long-time CEO Philip Yuen.