BDO makes one dozen fresh partner promotions across Australia
Accounting and consulting firm BDO has made one dozen mid-year partnership promotions across its Australian business to be fast closing in on the 300-mark, up from around 270 this time last year.
The latest additions, on top of a further eight who were elevated in January and 17 partnership recruits over the past financial year, have taken the firm’s overall tally to over 290, entrenching it as the nation’s fifth largest of its kind.
“Through these well-earned promotions and strategic appointments, our firm isn’t just growing, it’s thriving, with a robust foundation of leadership and a future rich with opportunity,” said BDO chief executive partner Tony Schiffmann.
Notably, more than half of the altogether 37 partnership additions over the past twelve months were made in BDO’s advisory line, which covers business consulting, digital & technology, cybersecurity, risk, restructuring, projects & infrastructure, sustainability, and corporate finance & deals. The advisory ratio among the 42 director promotions and hires over the same period was also close to half.
Among those newly celebrating partnership promotions were BDO’s Brisbane-based chief people officer Peter O’Sullivan, who joined the firm from Ashurst ín 2011. Wealth adviser Michael Ryan also joins the partnership in Brisbane, having been with the firm for a similar length of time, as does national risk and ethics director Willem Olivier, who arrived in 2010 via PKF in Cape Town.
Brisbane also saw the elevation of Daniel Splatt to partner within BDO’s research & development tax team after a decade at the firm, while new consulting partner Scott Rowan rejoined the Brisbane office in 2016 from the Queensland Law Society after kicking off his career with a decade spent at BDO Kendalls and later merger partner Horwath.
Across the other side of the country, corporate finance pair Ashton Lombardo and Bob Salameh become partners in Perth, having joined respectively in 2011 and 2020, with the latter spending earlier stints with KPMG and PwC in the Middle East. Well-connected when it comes to special celebrations, Ryan Wilton has meanwhile been admitted to the business services partnership in Adelaide after two decades at the firm.
In Sydney, indirect tax specialist Joel Brown becomes a partner after joining the firm in 2013, while Zaryab Hyder has been made an audit partner in Melbourne after crossing to the firm from Deloitte in the middle of last year, bringing more than a decade and a half worth of further professional experience with Grant Thornton and Ernst & Young in New Zealand, the UK, Pakistan and Middle East.
Filippo Federico Miotto (transfer pricing) and Michelle Sutherland (business services) are also now partners in respectively Melbourne and on the Sunshine Coast, while recent partnership recruits not previously covered by Consultancy.com.au include Elissa Bogardus, who joined the firm’s risk advisory line late last year after a decade at Deloitte and earlier stint at KPMG.