{"id":207574,"date":"2025-04-26T22:15:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T22:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/accounting\/big-4-alum-start-their-own-thing-hoping-clients-want-something-different-and-conflict-free\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T22:15:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T22:15:05","slug":"big-4-alum-start-their-own-thing-hoping-clients-want-something-different-and-conflict-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=207574","title":{"rendered":"Big 4 Alum Start Their Own Thing Hoping Clients Want Something Different and Conflict-Free"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/04acbcb7-592d-4607-98eb-87a4f1e9738d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Financial Times<\/em> had a story about<\/a> a couple Big 4 alumni across the pond starting their own consulting thing with the hope that they\u2019ll compete with their former firms. At first one might be compelled to laugh heartily at the idea of a boutique consulting firm competing for business against the Big 4 when mid-tier firms with billions in revenue can\u2019t even pull such a thing off but they could be onto something.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>The former UK head of EY and PwC\u2019s former chief operating officer are launching a rival accounting and consulting firm with backing from private equity, vowing to peel off British clients and partners from the Big Four.<\/p>\n<p>The new venture, Unity Advisory, has quietly begun recruiting for a launch expected by June, under the chairmanship of Steve Varley, who ran EY for nine years until 2020. The boutique advisory firm will be backed by as much as $300mn from Warburg Pincus, the private equity group.<\/p>\n<p>Unity\u2019s chief executive will be Marissa Thomas, who was one of the most senior female UK executives at PwC until last year, when she was passed over for the role of senior partner. She left the firm in February.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Marissa Thomas was reportedly an early contender for the senior partner role vacated by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goingconcern.com\/old-guy-at-pwc-wants-young-people-in-the-office-because-something-something-ai\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the office-loving Kevin Ellis<\/a> (\u201ca clear favorite to win\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/business\/2024\/03\/25\/inside-the-race-to-run-pwc-leadership-election\/\">according to <em>The Telegraph<\/em><\/a>) but dropped out of the race. That was the official story anyway. Prior to the announcement of the PwC UK senior partner shortlist on which she did not appear, it was said Thomas was advocating for increasing the profit pool shared among partners, a proposition that would have required increasing revenue and cutting costs.<\/p>\n<p>Last year\u2019s senior partner race at PwC UK came with accusations that the Middle East partners \u2014 who are a part of the PwC UK partner conglomerate, obviously \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goingconcern.com\/people-are-accusing-middle-east-partners-of-sexism-in-the-senior-partner-vote-at-pwc-uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">refused to support a woman in that role<\/a>. After indictments of sexism were flung around like so much monkey poop at a zoo, elected senior partner Marco Amitrano went on to say that the Middle East firm is \u201cvery progressive\u201d and added that ME leadership actually helped determine the shortlist of candidates that included two women and one man (him). \u201cSo the fact that they were part of determining two females and one male when there were other options should underline for you the fact that they are far from not supportive of females,\u201d he told <em>The Telegraph<\/em> last May. Women, dude. The word is women.<\/p>\n<p>The Middle East partners had approximately one-quarter of the senior partner vote. Notably, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goingconcern.com\/pissing-match-of-the-day-deloitte-vs-pwc-partner-pay\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the ME region saw 26 percent growth in 2024 against the UK side\u2019s paltry growth of just 3 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Enough backstory though. FT doesn\u2019t suggest Thomas is starting this venture out of spite but it does sound like this crew is dogging the Big 4 model that may or may not have contributed to her dipping out. \u201cCFOs are open to a new proposition,\u201d 18-year EY veteran Steve Varley said to FT. \u201cThe Big Four are a classy bunch of service providers, but people are looking for a proposition that is super client-centric, has really low administrative cost, is AI-led rather than based on legacy infrastructure and, crucially, has no conflicts.\u201d OK so he acknowledges that their former firms have a shiny exterior at least. <\/p>\n<p>Unity Advisors plans to offer only tax, accounting, and some consulting services but no audit. Seems a fairly straightforward way to eliminate many potential conflicts.<\/p>\n<p>As far as we can tell, this will be Warburg Pincus\u2019s first foray into professional accounting services. Their managing director David Reis went on record to say there\u2019s \u201csubstantial market opportunity for disruption\u201d in this sector. They all say that, don\u2019t they.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Financial Times had a story about a couple Big 4 alumni across the pond starting their own consulting thing with the hope that they\u2019ll compete with their former firms. At first one might be compelled to laugh heartily at the idea of a boutique consulting firm competing for business against the Big 4 when mid-tier [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11759],"tags":[43280,1022,79152,11235,79156,11268,79153,79154,11512,5454,79155],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-207574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accounting","tag-alum","tag-big","tag-bringing-in-clients","tag-clients","tag-conflictfree","tag-consulting","tag-ex-big-4","tag-good-luck","tag-hoping","tag-start","tag-talking-a-good-game"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Big 4 Alum Start Their Own Thing Hoping Clients Want Something Different and Conflict-Free - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=207574\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Big 4 Alum Start Their Own Thing Hoping Clients Want Something Different and Conflict-Free - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Financial Times had a story about a couple Big 4 alumni across the pond starting their own consulting thing with the hope that they\u2019ll compete with their former firms. 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