2018 winner
Deloitte
Deloitte has made great strides over the past six years in building a more diverse, strategic and collegiate culture, embracing external competition and demonstrating and increasing willingness to experiment.
No mean feat in a sector that has traditionally been seen as insular, risk-averse and hierarchical.
A fundamental shift in leadership style has been crucial to this, moving towards one where the leader creates the stage on which others perform. Leadership has created a vision that all its people are entrusted to deliver against and live up to.
The results have been outstanding:
• Women make up more than 30% of the leadership team.
• The firm now audits more of the FTSE 250 than its rivals.
• Revenue growth in 2017 of 11.2% compares with 4.7% for the market leader. If these relative rates continue, the firm will become the UK’s largest professional services firm.
• Profit per equity partner is significantly higher than its key competitors
• When it assumed co-chairmanship of the Professional & Business Services Council, it expanded membership to include competitors, other sectors and professional bodies, in line with its goal of becoming leader in its field.
Jo Caulfield, the team at Deloitte and Sally Ashworth (Harvard Business Review)