The accounting profession is facing a leadership bottleneck. Grant Thornton’s partnership with Raise the Bar suggests the industry is beginning to treat leadership as a strategic priority rather than a late-career privilege.
Grant Thornton’s new partnership with Raise the Bar to deliver a Leadership Academy might, at first glance, seem like another addition to the long list of corporate training initiatives. Yet beneath the headlines lies something more consequential for the accounting profession – a reflection of how urgently firms are rethinking leadership development in a sector struggling to replenish its pipeline of future leaders.
For years, the profession has been caught between competing forces. Automation has stripped away much of the routine work that once trained junior accountants in judgement. Hybrid working has loosened informal mentoring structures. Meanwhile, the next generation is increasingly sceptical of long working hours and hierarchical career paths. The result is a widening gap between technical expertise and the kind of leadership capability that drives client trust and firm resilience.
Grant Thornton’s decision to invest in leadership training beyond the boundaries of its own firm signals that the issue has moved from internal concern to industry imperative. By partnering with a learning specialist, the firm is positioning leadership development as a lever of business strategy – both for itself and its clients.
A decade ago, leadership training in accounting was typically reserved for those nearing partnership. The model relied on longevity and imitation: observe senior partners, absorb their habits, and eventually inherit a client book. The path to partnership is no longer linear, and leadership today demands skills — such as change management, inclusive communication, and strategic decision-making — that cannot be acquired through osmosis.
Firms now face a structural problem. Technical excellence remains the foundation of credibility, but it no longer guarantees leadership readiness. The profession’s next generation often possesses strong analytical and digital skills yet lacks exposure to the broader business and human dynamics that define modern leadership. Without intervention, the sector risks producing technically capable accountants who are ill-prepared to lead diverse teams or engage clients on strategic issues.
This is where initiatives like the Leadership Academy matter. Grant Thornton’s collaboration with Raise the Bar ties leadership learning directly to the Apprenticeship Levy, reframing it as a strategic resource rather than a compliance obligation. For many mid-tier and regional firms, the Levy remains an underused tool, a pot of funding that could, with the right guidance, build the leadership capacity often missing from technical training budgets.
The Academy’s focus areas – inclusive leadership, operational excellence, sustainability, and decision-making – reflect the evolving remit of accountants as advisers on transformation rather than mere compliance. As ESG reporting becomes mainstream and clients look to finance leaders for direction on risk and resilience, the ability to guide and anticipate becomes as valuable as the ability to calculate.
Grant Thornton is not new to this territory. Its internal apprenticeship and graduate programmes have already supported thousands of entrants into the profession, and its client-facing training has delivered over 10,000 apprenticeships. What’s new is the decision to formalise leadership as a shared service.
This shift mirrors a broader trend among large firms to treat L&D as part of their advisory proposition. EY, PwC, and Deloitte have all expanded their leadership academies or talent programmes for clients, using their internal experience as proof points. The model serves a dual purpose: it strengthens client relationships while reinforcing the firm’s role as a strategic partner rather than a technical supplier.
The emergence of leadership academies reflects a subtle but important change in what accounting firms see as their value proposition. Technical excellence is assumed. What now defines competitiveness is the ability to guide clients through uncertainty – economic, regulatory, or technological. That demands a generation of leaders who combine commercial insight with empathy and adaptability.
Yet building that generation will require more than workshops. It will mean rethinking the early years of professional training, embedding leadership behaviours from the start rather than layering them on later. Programmes like Grant Thornton’s Future Ready graduate course suggest that leadership is being repositioned as an entry-level discipline rather than a finishing touch.
There is also a cultural dimension. Leadership development cannot succeed if firms continue to reward only billable hours and client acquisition. The most progressive firms are starting to recognise mentorship, team growth, and innovation as leadership metrics in their own right. For mid-sized firms, where partnership succession is often the biggest risk to long-term stability, this recalibration could prove decisive.
The partnership between Grant Thornton and Raise the Bar arrives at a moment when professional learning is under renewed scrutiny. Many firms acknowledge that traditional CPD structures no longer reflect the breadth of what future leaders must master. Finance professionals are expected to navigate sustainability frameworks, AI ethics, and geopolitical volatility, none of which sit neatly within a technical syllabus.
The question now is whether the profession will treat leadership development as a sustained investment or a branding exercise. If firms follow Grant Thornton’s lead and embed structured leadership pathways into their talent strategy, the long-discussed “pipeline problem” might begin to narrow. If not, the industry could face an uncomfortable truth: a shortage of leaders, not accountants.
