Tag: Partners

Confirmed: New PwC Senior Associates Can Look Forward to Fireside Chats with Partners and a Pacific Ocean Backdrop

Last month we reported some details about the Milestone Award for PwC’s new class of Senior Associates. At the time we weren’t able to definitively confirm the details but we’re happy to report now that yes, your four day adventure will be happening at Terranea Resort and YES, there will be fireside chats and other social activities to keep you occupied.

“Fitness activities” may not appeal to everyone but with any luck the “signature adventure” won’t involve any physical exertion. ANYWAY, enjoy your getaway, new PwC SAs! Be sure to take lots of pictures and share them with us.

Let’s Congratulate the New Deloitte Partners and Directors

Perhaps it’s no accident that Joe Echevarria’s Q&A dropped in the Journal today because we also had the good fortune to have the list of new partners and directors forwarded to us earlier today. We still waiting for confirmation of the details from various Deloitte PR folks so we won’t give you names but we’re sharing a number of cities and practices after the jump.

Altogether there are 144 new partners and 190 new directors for fiscal year 2012. These numbers vary a little bit with our first report of the new partner numbers from a few weeks back. In that post, our tipster informed us that had there were 146 partners and 180 directors. These differences, for our purposes, are deemed immaterial, although we’re sure anyone directly affected would disagree.

Partners

AERS: 55 Total. Cities with the largest numbers of promotees: New York – 12; Chicago – 4; Wilton, CT – 4; Los Angeles – 3; Dallas – 3; San Francisco – 2; Orange County -2.

Consulting: 48 Total. Big winners: Atlanta – 5; Chicago 5; San Francisco – 5; Los Angeles – 4; New York – 3; Orange County – 3; Kansas City – 3; Boston – 3; Arlington – 3.

FAS: Six total: New York – 3; Dallas – 2; Los Angeles – 1.

Tax: 32 Total: New York – 6; Chicago – 5; Houston – 3; Washington – 3; Atlanta – 2.

USA: Three total: Atlanta, Washington and New York each had one.

Directors

AERS: 56 total. Show-off cities: New York – 14; San Francisco – 3; Cleveland – 3; Salt Lake City – 2; Princeton – 2; Philadelphia – 2; Parsippany – 2; McLean – 2; Chicago – 2.

Clients & Industries: Six total: New York – 3; Philadelphia, Charlotte and San Francisco all had one.

Consulting: 53 total. Notables: San Francisco – 6; Chicago – 6; New York – 5; Atlanta – 3; Boston – 3; Minneapolis – 3; McLean – 3; Washington – 3.

FAS: Four total – Washington 2; New York and Chicago – 1.

Field Operations: Two – Atlanta and Hyderbad

Finance: A pair in Hermitage, TN.

Markets & Offerings: Two in Chicago and nine cities with one each.

Other Shared Services: One lonely soul in Wilton, CT.

PR/Communications: One in New York and one in Wilton.

Research/Innovation: Hermitage and Wilton with one each.

Strategy, Brand and Innovation: One happy camper in Los Angeles.

Talent: One each for Chicago, Parsippany, Boston and Indianapolis.

Tax: 38 total: Chicago – 7; New York – 5; San Francisco – 4; Atlanta – 2; Boston – 2; Los Angeles – 2; Philadelphia – 2.

Tech: One each for New York, Camp Hill, PA and Hyderbad

USA: One soul in Stamford, Rosslyn, Arlington, Richmond and Wilton.

So congratulations to all the new partners and directors. Leave them some well wishes in the comments. The only question now is, which one of these rainmakers is buying Joe’s house?

Deloitte Goes Partner Crazy

Fresh from the mailbag… well, not fresh, actually, it’s kind of been sitting in there gathering dust all weekend so it’s kind of the moldy gym sock of mail. But I digress.

Prior year they [Deloitte] promoted 101 partners and 136 directors; for this year (actual firm year starts June 1, but partners get promoted in September) there will be 146 partners and 180 directors.
This is for the United States only…

Great news for the new partners and directors, not so great for those of you who are still staring at the Green Dot’s multiplier slides wondering when that 8x bump is going to kick in.

Feel free to commence to discussing how big your yacht will be when you make partner in the comments.

Ex-Ernst & Young Partner’s Former Lover Skirts Jail Time, ‘Ashamed’ for Sleeping Around to Land Insider Trading Tips

Early last year, James Gansman, a former Transaction Services partner was sentenced to a year and a day for securities fraud. This all came about after Gansman met Donna Murdoch on ashleymadison.com which eventually evolved from run-of-the-mill extramarital activities across the tri-state area to Gansman giving Murdoch hot tips on M&A activity. She then picked up Richard Hansen on Ashley Madison, who also gave her a few more tips that were used for monetary gain. All told, it came to about $392k for Murdoch.

Unfortunately, her trading activity got some people’s attention and this particular jig was up. Accordingly, Murdoch flipped on both her boy toys and as luck would have it, that will kept her out of jail. That’s obviously great and all but Murdoch has found the whole situation quite regrettable.

Donna Murdoch, 49, buried her face in her hands and began blubbering after the judge said she wouldn’t be heading off to the pokey. “Your honor, I will carry the shame of all my wrongdoing for the rest of my life,” the heavyset blonde said as her forgiving hubby and three kids watched from the gallery in Manhattan federal court.

It’s a tough, tough situation to be sure. You know what else is a tough situation? Deciding whether or not to sell out the people you were banging for the information so you could stay out of jail:

“It’s been really painful, but I still feel like the decision to cooperate was the right one, given the situation,” Murdoch said yesterday.

Hot tips from hot lips [NYP]

Ex-Ernst & Young Partner Trades Tech Companies for Cuddlesome Creatures

The Oakland Tribune shares this charming story of an accountant who discovered her talents would be more appreciated in helping animals:

Like many people who love animals, Sue James dreamed of becoming a veterinarian when she was a child.

“I looked into going to vet school but my parents, they wanted me to pursue a more traditional career,” said James, a Danville resident who grew up in a house in New York state where the family pets included dogs, rabbits — even a monkey.

After a long stint in the corporate world, James found an outlet for her lifelong love of animals at Tri-Valley Animal Rescue, an all-volunteer group founded in 1992 with a mission to prevent the unnecessary euthanasia of shelter animals.

Uncle Ernie gets a badass plug in the next bit:

She started volunteering in 2005 as she was winding down a long and successful career at Ernst & Young. There, she was a partner who oversaw audit work for some of Silicon Valley’s leading high-tech companies. Today, she serves on the boards of Yahoo, Applied Materials and Coherent.

Working at Ernst & Young, she learned the importance of teamwork to meet the needs of clients. That focus also carries over to her volunteer work. “It’s about the cats and dogs,” she said. “But also, for me, it’s how can we work effectively as a team.”

It makes sense that she’d end up at the shelter; from what I hear, actual auditing isn’t much different.

By the way, she’s 65. She holds a bachelor’s in math from Hunter College, New York (1967) and bachelor’s in accounting from San Jose State (1975). She taught math and science in junior high and high school in New York state from 1967-69, worked in San Jose office of Ernst & Young starting in 1975, was named partner in 1987, retired in 2006, then consulted for the company through 2009.

Promotion Watch ’11: Ernst & Young Admits 548 New Partners Worldwide

Still a little perplexed that I have to find this out via press release but I understand that at least some of you are beating off clients…

with a stick.

Jim Turley, Chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young says, “Building the next generation of partners to lead our business is vital to our future. This year’s marked increase in numbers reflects our ongoing commitment to excellence and our confidence in the future.”

John Ferraro, Chief Operating Officer of Ernst & Young says, “These admissions are the result of a rigorous selection process and recognizes the significant contribution of each individual to our success. This is a strong vote of confidence in the leadership potential of these outstanding individuals.”

Congrats to the all the new partners at E&Y!

Are Accountants Planking at Work?

If you’ve been paying attention, you’re familiar with the lamest Internet meme since last year’s bros icing bros – planking.

Planking is a “game” that involves people laying face down in normal to not-so-normal places and then having a friend take their picture while the planking is occurring. It’s been going on for a couple of months now but right out of the gate it was abundantly clear that planking was STUPID. Not stupid in the sense that “you can die while doing it” stupid but more so, “you and your friends are idiots” stupid. Despite this, people are “crazed” with it because, obviously, they are losers. And maybe racist.

ANYWAY, I bring this up A) it’s a fairly slow news day and B) a friend of a friend of GC emailed us the following query:

This is kind of a random idea but when watching this video, http://youtu.be/vQNTN8Z8AJY, I was wondering if accountants are planking at work, especially at Big 4/Big Regional firms like on copiers, partners’ desks, etc and have captured them in a video or in pictures. Even though I think the concept is kind of lame, I think about doing it every day including planking inside of one of the partner’s convertible which he leaves the top down all day. I would love to see if anyone has any great planking poses at work.

Yes, I am really bored at work and my mind tends to wander (a lot).

No problem friend of a friend, it’s summer and you’re a CPA, so boredom happens. Here’s the video in question:

Quite the montage of planktitude, isn’t it? Someone even took the opportunity to plank during Carmageddon which resulted in “Plankmageddon” (obv).

But back to our reader – even though I’m against planking in a general sense, I would not oppose planking inside a partner’s convertible. Especially if you emailed the picture to us. Of course you would have to take great precaution to not be identified but it may be worth the risk. And that goes for the rest of you. If the clock seems to be moving backwards at any point this summer, you should consider planking and then sending us the pictures. I’ll put forth a few conditions for scoring:

• Planking on a manager’s desk – 100 points.

• Planking on a partner’s desk – 500 points.

• Planking on the office managing partner’s desk – 1,000 points.

• Planking on the client’s conference table – 1,000 points

• Planking in the lobby with your firm’s sign in view – 1,000 points

• Photo of the office managing partner planking on his/her desk – 5,000 points.

• Planking on a partner’s [insert luxury car here] – 5,000 points.

Of course this is not meant to discourage creativity on your part. If you have other suggestions, please offer them up below along with the points to be awarded. Happy planking.

Promotion Watch ’11: Grant Thornton Admits 26 New Partners and Principals

Apparently everyone’s email at the Purple Rose of Chicago is broken because I had to learn about this from a press release.

Grant Thornton LLP, the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd, one of the six global audit, tax and advisory organizations, admitted 26 new partners and principals to the firm, effective August 1. These partners and principals are based throughout the firm’s offices across the country.

Partners and principals admitted to the firm are thought leaders upon whom the firm relies to provide personalized attention in serving clients. These professionals have demonstrated consistently their extraordinary ability to understand and meet the needs of client companies and industries. They have also demonstrated long-term leadership in the accounting profession and the community.

“These professionals have demonstrated extraordinary client service, driving value for the dynamic firms we serve,” said Stephen Chipman, Grant Thornton’s CEO. “These leaders exemplify Grant Thornton’s mission of making a difference – to our colleagues, our clients, our profession and our communities.”

It’s also strange that no one from GT has dropped any news regarding compensation discussions as this is about the time we should start hearing it or sayeth comments from the last post on the subject. Anyway, give the new partners a slap on the back or at least a nice note.

Ernst & Young Auditor Wants to Give a Partner an Earful About Comp Even If He Receives a ‘Very Generous’ Raise

Last week, we tried to get the ball rolling on Ernst & Young compensation rumors and while some may chalk up the lack of chatter to “PwC sticker shock,” others claim this is simply standard operating procedure. If you remember last year, eventually Ernst & Young reported some impressive raises that kept pace with P. Dubs but one of Turley’s troops is expecting the worst this year and would like to give a partner a piece of his mind. Unfortunately, he isn’t sure how to do it:

Hello,

By way of introduction, I am a loyal reader of going concern as well as a big four slave in the audit practice. Slavery had begun four years ago at EY and with all the compensation talk going on at other big four firms, I can’t help but to think –

What is a tactful way of telling a partner during the comp talk, “well thank you for that oh so very generous double digit percentage raise (assuming if it’s even double digit), but I am still unhappy because even after this supposed raise, you are still not paying me jack for the amount of contribution and commitment that you demand from me.”

As noted above, I’m a second year senior from an east coast office and my base is still not breaking mid-60s. Seriously, what the f___?

I will be forever grateful if you post my question up for discussion. Thanks so much!!!

Yours,

Angry EY audit senior

There are various directions we can take here so I’ll try to cover a few options before turning it over to you all.

A. Start off with a variation of, “Look, I’m an ungrateful, bitchy auditor. I also have unrealistic expectations and an inflated notion of my self-worth. I’d really appreciate an explanation as to how you can reconcile these traits to this paltry 10-15% raise.”

B. Continue with the slavery narrative.

C. Start questioning leadership at every turn, from challenging Andrew Cuomo to rumored twisting of Senators’ arms. “If this is the type of firm your running, yada yada yada.”

D. Simply ask if E&Y’s raises will beat PwC’s.

Now you may not think these are “tactful” ways to have this conversation but he did sign, “Angry EY Audit Senior.” If I tried to reason with this person, I’d be doing him a disservice. And when is honesty ever not tactful? If you sugarcoat your frustration, the partner will assume you’re a pushover like everyone else. My guess is most partners want you to give it to them straight. If you’re a performer (and something tells me you think you are) than this partner doesn’t want to lose your talent.

Having said all that, not everyone can muster up the courage to ditch the filter in these meetings. If you’ve got better more practical ideas than what I’ve listed, feel free to bestow your sage advice below.

Promotion Watch ’11: BDO Admits 13 New Partners

Jack Weisbaum is letting a baker’s dozen join the club, although with the new national heads recently announced, there’s an new extra layer between the newbies and the most interesting accounting CEO in the world.

Here are the lucky 13:

John Barkmeyer (Orange County – Assurance), Doug Bekker (Grand Rapids – Tax), Elliott Binder (San Jose – Tax), Sofia Blair (New York – – Assurance) and Mike Campbell (San Francisco – Tax), Demetrio Frangiskatos (New York – Assurance), Nania Gopal (Orange County – National Assurance Office), Mike Hottel (Washington, DC – Assurance), Joel Mitchell (Chicago – Tax), Stathis Poulos (Raleigh – Assurance), Jennifer Quaglino (Woodbridge – Tax), Chris Tylka (Chicago – Assurance) and Andy Zaleski (Detroit – Tax).

Congratulations and stay thirsty, new partners.

[via BDO]

Comp Watch ’11: Sit-downs at PwC Starting This Week

From the mailbag:

Any rumors on PwC comp going around yet? Partner discussions are supposed to start this week and go through next.

After all the discussion around PwC’s new compensation structure one may have thought that was enough to keep people talking for months. Fortunately, plenty of mini-BoMos out there are anxious about this year’s compensation adjustment and since the fiscal year ends next Thursday, it’s not a wonder. Sooo, if you’ve been (un)fortunate enough to have your little money chat let everyone know how it went. Don’t spare the details: office, level, practice, etc.

Promotion Watch ’11: PwC Admits 136 New Partners

Last year, we learned about new partner promotions at the House of Moritz the first week of June. This year, we had to wait for a press release from the Denver office to get issued before we heard anything about it. Now, I’m not mad (although Adrienne probably is) just disappointed. If you forgot how to get in touch with us, it’s a simple as clicking email us or on our names in the margin. Regardless, we got on the horn and managed to get the whole scoop.


136 new partners admitted firm-wide, representing all PwC service lines.
–53 new partners in Assurance,
–50 in Tax,
–32 in Advisory and
–one in Internal Firm Services.

The new class of 136 is 53 more than last year, so that clears a few extra spots out of the parking lot at senior manager. The promotions bring the total count of partners in the States to over 2,300.

So a hearty congratulations to all the new PwC partners. No doubt you’ve worked and worked and worked for it. We just hope emotions were kept in check at any celebrations.