Building a next-generation professional services firm

Our CEO Darren Graves shares how our people remain at the heart of the firm we’re building for the next generation.

This is my first Yearbook since becoming CEO.  

Reading through this year’s stories, I’m struck by two things. The breadth of what we’ve delivered for clients. And the way our people have looked after each other and supported the places in which we work.  

Both point to something I think about a lot: the responsibility we carry. To the clients whose businesses we work with. To our people. To the communities we’re part of and the wider economy around us. It’s why what we choose to do next matters so much.  

It's a pivotal moment for the firm. I’m proud to have been appointed as CEO and look forward to delivering on my vision to build a next-generation professional services firm. 

We’re starting from real strength. Brilliant people. Strong client relationships. A track record of helping organisations change. That’s what this next chapter is built on. 

We’re operating against a complicated backdrop. Geopolitical uncertainty. The challenge of securing reliable, affordable energy. The rise of AI. Each one can make the world feel harder to navigate.  

Yet this year’s stories tell us we’re making progress.

We’ve helped clients deliver major programmes. We’ve used technology to unlock productivity, in our own firm and our clients’ businesses. We’ve helped advance the energy transition. We’ve supported public services in becoming more resilient. And we’ve created opportunity for our people and the places we’re part of. 

What comes through in these stories is what I’ve seen throughout my 25 years at Deloitte: we’re at our best when we combine expertise, sector insight and judgement with a real understanding of our clients’ businesses – and turn that into action. We connect the right people with the right ideas. 

But that only happens because of how we work: taking the time to understand each other’s priorities, leading with empathy to build trust, showing up for one another. That’s what makes the real difference.

Our quarterly CFO Survey paints a clear picture. Finance leaders are having to balance risk against investment and productivity against resilience.

Many are hoping that technology, data and AI can make that easier by automating process and improving efficiency. 

But there's a human balancing act underneath the financial one. How to adopt AI without losing trust. How to automate processes while ensuring people feel valued. And how to make sure the benefits of AI aren't confined to the businesses that deploy it, but reach the society they operate in. 

Getting that balance right is what I'd call success.  

And I believe it comes from how organisations are designed, not just how they invest. Judgement and accountability need to be built into the AI infrastructure. That’s what will differentiate the firms that thrive, and that belief is at the heart of my vision to build a next-generation firm.

As AI makes intelligence increasingly abundant, the role our people play matters more, not less. I cannot emphasise that enough. AI can’t replace lived experience. It shouldn’t replicate the judgement and unwritten know-how built over years of working alongside clients and colleagues, one relationship, one project, one shared challenge at a time.  

This is what first got me thinking about conscious intelligence, the human kind, as distinct from the machine kind. The conscious organisation is shorthand for what remains uniquely human – tacit awareness, judgement, sensing, accountability, empathy, creativity – the things AI can support but that we humans own. AI has scaled intelligence to the organisational level: we're making sure consciousness scales with it too. 

That belief puts our people at the heart of the firm we’re building for the next generation. We’ll keep bringing in brilliant talent from all backgrounds, creating career pathways, and equipping our people with the skills that allow them to thrive in whatever comes next. 

This firm gave me opportunities I could never have imagined. Keeping our people at the centre of how we work is what makes sure that same door stays open, for the people here today, and for everyone still to join us.  

Change is accelerating, and that means we need to move with it, deciding now what we want this firm to become. 

That’s why my vision is simple: to build a next-generation professional services firm – loved by our people, trusted by our clients and ready for the AI era.

AI will transform what we're capable of, but it's people who decide what we do with that capability. The firms that thrive will be more alive to opportunity, more alert to risk, more aware of consequence, more able to deliver on what matters. 

I'm proud of what we've built this year, and I can’t wait for what’s next.