Deloitte boosts Scottish team with new partner promotions

Deloitte has announced the appointment of Ann Aspinall and David Sweeney to its Scottish partnership.

The appointments come amid the global accountant’s largest-ever round of 75 new partner promotions across the UK.

Ms Aspinall and Mr Sweeney, based in Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively, have each been with the firm for more than a decade, playing important roles within the firm’s audit and advisory practices. Both are well-known for their deep industry knowledge in their respective markets.

Ms Aspinall has over 15 years’ experience working with major financial services organisations, across international markets.

She has extensive expertise in retail banking credit risk, financial control and finance change, and has been at the forefront of the audit quality agenda.

Mr Sweeney joined Deloitte 14 years ago and has played an important role in growing the firm’s corporate audit practice.

He has worked with a number of listed companies, large international groups and high growth private businesses, while also taking responsibility for the firm’s talent development across Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Steve Williams, senior partner for Scotland at Deloitte, said: “Ann and David are great examples of how we look to develop the incredible talent we have at the firm; both have grown from strength to strength with the business.

“Over the years, they have demonstrated the firm’s values admirably, by focusing on the development of their own teams and fostering a culture that focuses on talent. They are an inspiration to the people they work with and are strong role models for those coming through in the future.

“Between them, they have a wealth of experience in audit and advisory and will be excellent additions to our Scottish partnership. We look forward to seeing them play an even more active role in the firm’s development in the years to come.”

Nearly a third of Deloitte UK’s newly promoted partners are female, reflecting the success of measures introduced by the firm to identify and retain high-performing women. Deloitte also announced the launch of its ‘return-to-work’ scheme, which offers a 12-week paid internship to women who have been out of the workforce for between three and six years. The scheme will run from September to December, during term-time only.

In the first year, it will be open to Deloitte alumni and the ambition is for 80% of participants to take up longer-term roles with the firm at the end of their internship.

Emma Codd, managing partner for talent, added: “Gender diversity at leadership levels remains a challenge for many businesses but there is an ever-increasing understanding of the issues that hold women back in the workplace and the ways in which we can best tackle these.

“We have implemented a series of actions to increase the number of women we recruit, to ensure that development opportunities are clearly available and to provide a working environment that enables women to balance a successful career with family life.”