On the money with Gavin Hinks
You’ve got to hand it to John Connolly, chief executive at Deloitte; things look like they are going to plan, and very nicely too, thank you very much.
And I’m not just talking about his salary, which has now soared to a whopping
£4.6m (I’ll return to that later).
No, what’s of interest is the firm’s progress to its £2bn turnover goal. Last
week, Deloitte revealed income of £1.8bn, just a smidgen at £200m from reaching
the target.
It was last year during a visit to the great man’s HQ that I learned of the
two-in-two plan. That was to reach £2bn revenues in two years. Looks like that’s
on the cards as planned for 2008.
But Connelly is unlikely to be the first head of an accounting practice to
break through the £2bn barrier. That honour looks likely to go to Kieran Poynter
when he presents PricewaterhouseCooper’s results to June 2007 shortly.
Does this matter to these men? Well, ask them and they will tell you it
doesn’t. But you can’t quite believe it. Being the biggest has got cache that
nothing else in accounting has. And Connolly, I’m sure, would love to overtake
PwC. The firm’s growing at a faster rate and Connolly is a grafter. He prefers a
pint of bitter to a glass of champagne (obviously an indicator of someone who
works hard) and he is without doubt ambitious.
He’s ploughed his life into the firm and if he can make it the biggest outfit
in the country before his term is over well, whose to say he wouldn’t feel very
proud indeed.
OK, back to that pay scale. Surely Connolly is now the highest paid
accountant in UK practice of all time? If anyone can tell me of someone paid
more, don’t hesitate to let me know. I have a space in my diary for lunch.
Gavin Hinks is editor of Accountancy Age