Gavin Fitzpatrick talks about his role as Director in the FAAS team in Grant Thornton
- What are your main priorities and goals in your role?
I am a Director in the Financial Accounting and Advisory Services (FAAS) team in Grant Thornton Ireland. FAAS is a business unit that focuses on serving the needs of finance functions within multinational organisations. Over the last 6 years, our team has experienced significant growth and in this time, we have developed key engagements with US multinationals.
In June of this year, I transferred to the US member firm of Grant Thornton International Limited on a 2 year assignment. Key objectives in my current role are; 1) to manage key accounts we have established in the US, providing those clients with a relationship contact in the same time zone, and 2) work with our US member firm to enhance our global service offering when working on new engagements.
- What are the challenges facing your industry going forward?
The ability to recruit and retain talent remains a significant challenge in our industry. Near full employment is adding further pressure in this regard. At the same time, the need to adapt to change in regulations and technology at an increasing pace means we have to remain agile and ensure we have teams with the right skills.
- How do you keep your team/staff motivated?
Offering development opportunities is key. In an increasingly competitive market for talent, we understand how important it is to work with people and take a real interest in their career development.
- What new trends are emerging in your industry?
We are constantly seeing new ways to utilize technology. Understanding, how to best deploy emerging applications and control them poses great opportunity but also challenges.
- How do you define success and what drives you to succeed?
I believe, in professional services, success is defined by the quality of our deliverable and how much value we provide for our clients. Reputation is obviously of critical importance in professional services and delivering for clients to enhance our reputation is what drives me personally.
- What’s the best advice you’ve been given, or would give, in business?
Never get complacent. A core value of FAAS has always been that we go the extra mile for our clients. Although we have had success, our core values remain the same.
- What’s next for your company?
Improving our service offering through continued investment in our delivery platforms. This requires investment in technology and people.
- What opportunities or plans for growth do you see in 2019?
Through working more closely with our US member firm, I believe we can continue to see growth within our business unit despite increasing uncertainty in the economic outlook.
- Where do you want your business/brand to be this time next year?
As a professional services firm we will always have a sharp focus on quality. We do however bring fresh thinking to the services we deliver for our clients relative to our competitors. This is reflected in the recent StatusGo campaign we launched and represents how we want our brand recognised in the market place.
