Brittain's defection is a major coup for Deloitte

Louise Brittain, one of the UK’s highest profile personal insolvency specialists, is to leave Baker Tilly to join Deloitte.

Brittain, who has worked at Baker Tilly for 14 years, joins the Big Four firm as a partner and will head the personal insolvency division. She will work on contentious issues, as well as large corporate fraud investigations.

She has worked with various celebrity clients, including ex-Atomic Kitten singer Kerry Katona, goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar, politician Jonathan Aitken, presenter Michael Barrymore and historian David Irving.

The defection is a coup for Deloitte which has made a series of big-name appointments over the past couple of years, including former CBI director-general Lord Digby Jones, who had a spell at the firm before becoming trade minister, and former government minister Lord Warner, who joined Deloitte’s public sector practice as a strategic adviser.

In 2007 Deloitte appointed Margaret Ewing, former FD at airports operator BAA, as vice chairman and former permanent secretary to the Department of Culture, Dame Sue Street, works on the Deloitte public sector team.

‘Baker Tilly is a fantastic firm to work for, but now it is time to work on bigger cases,’ said Brittain. She added that she would like to work on higher profile bankruptcies and focus on large fraud investigations.

Brittain, who qualified with Deloitte Haskin & Sells, will take up her appointment in August this year and will stay on with Baker Tilly until the end of June.

Brittain joined the firm in 1996 as assistant manager in business recovery and was promoted to partner in 2001.

Deloitte won Accountancy Age’s 2008 large firm of the year award and has its sights set on overtaking PricewaterhouseCoopers to become the UK’s largest firm.