Deloitte strengthens leadership team with the appointment of 13 new partners

• 33% of partnership group is now female; on track to achieve goal of 35% by 2025 

Tuesday 4 June 2024. Deloitte Ireland has appointed 13 new partners across its business, following strong growth throughout the year. The new partners are Thomas Fedigan, Rory Brown, and Grace Cartin, (Audit & Assurance); Rebecca Ring, David Walshe, and Tom Hynes (Consulting); Caroline Costello (Financial Advisory); Nicola Flannery (Risk Advisory); Aileen Stephens, Niamh Barry, Karen Clarke, and Joanne Clarke (Tax & Legal); and Sinead Gogan (People & Purpose).

The appointment of nine female partners brings the proportion of females within the partnership group to 33%, on track to achieve the target goal of 35% by 2025.

Commenting on the appointments, Harry Goddard, CEO, Deloitte Ireland, said: 

New executive team appointment with 50/50 gender split

Deloitte has also announced a number of new appointments to its Ireland executive team, whose skills and experience will support the firm’s continued growth. The executive team consist of 10 people, with 50% women.

Details of the new executive are included below. 

The new partners are:

Niamh Barry

Niamh specialises in employment tax and global mobility. She has significant experience in advising clients across a broad range of payroll tax issues, including Revenue audits, due diligence matters, expense policy reviews, issues arising from global mobility programmes, and taxation of equity schemes.

Niamh has spent time in two different industry roles giving her huge insight into how clients operate, the challenges they face and how they expect an adviser to show up. She works across a wide range of industries and sectors with a particular focus on technology, construction, financial services, and pharmaceutical. Niamh is a UCC alum and a member of both Chartered Accountants Ireland and the Irish Tax Institute.

Rory Brown

Rory is a highly experienced chartered accountant who has spent the last 13 years with Deloitte as part of the financial services audit department. With a focus on banking and payments clients, as well as extensive experience in the private credit and real estate sectors, Rory has led some of the firm's largest and most complex engagements both locally and internationally. As a trusted adviser to many of our large listed and regulated clients, Rory has developed deep credit expertise, enabling him to provide valuable insights and guidance to clients as they navigate complex issues. His ability to build and maintain strong client relationships has been instrumental in driving successful outcomes for clients.

Grace Cartin

Grace has over 12 years’ audit and assurance experience working with a range of large private and multinational clients. She provides audit and advisory services in both IFRS and FRS 101/102 reporting frameworks across a wide range of business sectors with a focus on banking, energy, technology, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals. Grace also has experience working internationally with Deloitte in the US. She has a law degree from Newcastle University, is a member of Chartered Accountants Ireland, and is actively involved with the Chartered Accountants Ulster Society member services committee.

Joanne Clarke

Joanne’s experience spans a vast range of industry sectors which allows her to understand the unique VAT challenges facing individual clients and their distinct business needs.

Joanne has extensive experience providing international organisations with VAT technical analysis, supply chain structuring & optimisation, governance & compliance and dispute resolution across the globe, including five years of complex VAT implementation projects in the GCC.

Joanne is also a trusted adviser to diverse family-owned businesses, start-ups & SMEs, public sector/PPPs and NGOs, supporting them every step of the way with their local and international VAT requirements. Joanne is a Chartered Tax Advisor (CTA) with the ITI and a Chartered Accountant with the ICAI.

Karen Clarke

Karen specialises in M&A tax in the Business tax department and has been with Deloitte for over 12 years. Karen has significant experience working on a variety of M&A transactions including advising on the tax structure of transactions, undertaking the tax due diligence aspects (both buy side and vendor), review and advice of legal agreements and post-acquisition integrations.

Karen also advises Private Equity investors (domestic and international) in relation to investing in Irish businesses and works with many of their portfolio company’s post-acquisition.

Karen is an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and an Associate of the Irish Taxation Institute.

Caroline Costello

Caroline began her career as a lawyer in South Africa, and has worked in Financial Crime risk management for more than 15 years, with a focus on forensic and financial crime advisory services. She has been involved in numerous international engagements throughout Africa, East Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America, focusing on leveraging technology, operations and qualified people to effectively identify and mitigate financial crime within high risk industries.

Caroline has worked with clients in various sectors, with a focus in the financial services and public sector. She has extensive experience in Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing, including supporting multinational financial institutions with complex compliance transformation initiatives, leading large-scale remediation projects, and implementation and enhancement of controls for compliance with international regulatory standards relating to AML/ATF, ABAC, and Sanctions.

Thomas Fedigan

Thomas has over 13 years’ experience providing audit and advisory services to a broad range of listed and multinational clients, primarily in the Consumer and Energy, Resources & Industrials sectors. He has extensive experience in leading large and complex, multi-location group audit engagements under PCAOB and ISA standards. Thomas has significant experience dealing with complex reporting matters including US GAAP & IFRS transition projects, initial stock exchange listings, SEC regulations and financial process improvement reviews.

Thomas holds a BA (Hons) in Accounting & Finance from Dundalk Institute of Technology, an MBS in Accounting from Dublin City University and is a member (FCA) of Chartered Accountants Ireland.

Nicola Flannery

Nicola specialises in digital trust and transparency including data privacy, internet regulations and trustworthy AI. With over 15 years’ experience across industry and professional services she has a diverse client portfolio across all sectors (TMT, Pharma, FSI, Consumer and Public Sector). She has led on some of Deloitte Ireland’s largest privacy and internet regulation engagements, supporting clients with all elements of privacy and emerging technology risk. She is an expert in Compliance by Design (Privacy, Data Ethics, Trust) and has extensive experience across end-to-end data protection with a focus on operations: managing GDPR maturity assessments at system and department level as well as strategising, developing and operationalising data protection frameworks and operating models. She uses her knowledge and skills to support clients with innovation and brand enhancement using compliance as an enabler. Her qualifications include a Masters in Commercial Law and a Diploma in Technology Law. She is a Fellow of the IAPP (FIP) and holds a CIPP/E and CIPM.

Sinead Gogan

Sinead is Chief Human Resources Officer and has responsibility for the firm’s people and purpose strategy, including end-to-end talent solutions, internal communications and social impact.

Sinead began her HR career in Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) and has held HR, internal communications, and corporate responsibility roles in Ireland and internationally. She spent 15 years at Fidelity Investments where over her tenure she was Vice-President of human resources with responsibility for locations in Ireland, China and Global Business Services.

She is a Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Personnel and Development and holds a number of post-graduate qualifications.

In a voluntary capacity, she serves as Chair of the Board for Meath Women’s Refuge & Support Services and is a member of the Irish Management Institute (IMI) Council. In 2022, she was appointed as an ordinary member to the Board of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in Ireland.

Tom Hynes

Tom is focused on finance transformation and has extensive experience in providing programme and project management for large-scale finance transformation programmes supporting clients with their finance strategy, operating model design and implementation.

Tom has worked with clients across multiple industries including life sciences, technology, media, energy, financial services and the public sector.

During his time in Consulting, he has lead the feasibility, design and implementation of finance shared services functions on a global basis. He has also supported the set-up of centres of excellence in the areas of transfer pricing, statutory reporting and decision support. Tom has assisted clients optimise their finance functions through digital technology.

Tom has a B.Comm from NUIG and a Masters in Accounting from UCD. Tom is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.

Rebecca Ring

Rebecca is a specialist in healthcare consulting with over 12 years of experience collaborating with healthcare providers and regulators such as the HSE, public, and private hospitals. Her primary focus lies in healthcare strategy and overseeing large capital infrastructure projects, contributing significantly to some of Ireland's most substantial healthcare programmes. Rebecca focuses primarily on healthcare strategy and large capital infrastructure projects and has worked on some of the largest programmes in healthcare in Ireland. Prior to joining Deloitte, Rebecca spent a number of years working with VHI on their provider expansion programme and prior to that in Accenture’s healthcare practice. She brings deep industry experience and a breadth of experience within the sector. Rebecca’s academic background includes a Ph.D. in Pharmacology which she received having spent a number of years conducting primary scientific research in UCD.

Aileen Stephens

Aileen has a deep interest working with Family Enterprises and their business owners. Aileen is a chartered tax adviser with 14 years’ experience focusing on value delivery for her clients using her insights and expertise to develop solutions to challenging issues.

Aileen advises her clients on a wide range of investment portfolio matters including corporate restructurings, business model optimisation, real estate / investment holding solutions, M&A transactions and cross border expansions. At a shareholder level, Aileen advises business owners on succession planning strategies, wealth management, NextGen development and exit readiness for the sale of a business.

David Walshe

David has over 20 years' experience working on digital transformations leveraging platforms such as Salesforce and Adobe. He is an expert in leading large digital programmes and applying agile practices to deliver business growth. 

He leads the Salesforce practice in Ireland and is one of the foremost experts on the platform. He has deep expertise in helping clients leverage Salesforce to deliver great experiences across their Sales, Service and Marketing teams.  

David brings a focus on value realisation for clients in the Consumer, Manufacturing and Public Sectors, helping them to generate an increased return on their investment and a faster time to value. 

The Deloitte Ireland executive team is:

• Harry Goddard, CEO
• Brian O’Callaghan, Head of Audit & Assurance
• Ita Langton, Head of Consulting
• Anya Cummins, Head of Financial Advisory
• Daryl Hanberry, Head of Tax and Legal
• Peter Glynn, Head of Growth, Clients & Markets
• Yvonne Byrne, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer
• Emer O’Shaughnessy, Quality, Risk & Security Lead
• Martin Reilly, Chief Operations Officer
• Sinead Gogan, Chief HR Officer

ENDS