David Smith

Graduates Claire Don, Ewan Shiels, Euan Woodley and Adam Graham will join school-leavers Colette Swinley, Archie Williams and Wallis Lynch as trainee chartered accountants in the firm’s audit departments in Dundee and Edinburgh.

Dundee University graduate Filip Grzybowski joins the internal audit department, while Abertay University graduates Claire Ogilvie, Darren Wyllie and Emma Borrie join as trainee tax accountants.

The firm said the recruitment of these trainees shows it is upholding its commitment to make a significant investment in developing young talent through its graduate recruitment programme.

For the first time this year, the firm extended the number of those joining straight from school to their Edinburgh office and it also increased the number of tax trainees taken on from two in 2019, to three in 2020.

Managing partner David Smith said: “Our decision to invest in our future, and the future of young graduates and school leavers, reflects our positivity as a firm. Since the pandemic hit the UK, we have also increased our marketing team, recruited into our outsourced payroll team, added to our growing insolvency department headed by Shona Campbell, and made senior appointments to our forensic accounting and tax departments.

“We are cautiously optimistic about the future. No-one knows what’s ahead and our priority since April has been to look after our staff and stay close to our clients to help them overcome the challenges they face. A lesson learned following the financial crisis of 2008 when trainee recruitment slowed, was the adverse impact on cost efficiencies and finding suitably experienced staff in the following years.

“Our focus is to help our teams reach their potential and to create wealth for our communities. I am very excited with the calibre of this year’s intake, who are attracted by our values and the opportunities we can offer them as a leading independent firm to shape their own destiny.”

The new recruits, who will work from home until it is deemed safe to do otherwise, will each have a mentor and be able to network with colleagues online as they complete their modular training.