Deloitte’s senior partner sets out ambitious growth plans

The recently appointed senior partner at Deloitte’s Yorkshire and North East practice has ambitions to lead a 50% growth across his regional practice over the next five years.

Speaking with TheBusinessDesk.com, Stuart Cottee, who was appointed to the position at the business advisory firm in January after 25 years working at Deloitte, said: “I have an over-arching ambition to grow much faster. This level of growth does require a lot effort and requires everybody to get on board. It does also require investment from the firm.

“Having to spoken to our teams, including corporate finance, they want to do and think that they can do more in the region.

“In many ways, I don’t think there are any limits on what can be achieved. Success comes from serving our clients really well. We have fabulous people at Deloitte; attracting and retaining the right people will deliver that growth.”

In the most recently published results, for the year ended May 31 2017, show revenue across Deloitte in the UK was up 11.2% to £3.4bn while consulting revenue grew by 13.6% to £859m and audit and risk advisory by 13.1% to £932m. Tax was up by 5.7% to £691m and financial advisory, on a like-for-like basis, grew by 1.5% to £459m.

Cottee said he was completely focused upon delivering further strong results by supporting the whole practice and ensuring opportunities for growth and development; as well as directing investment into the region. He added that there was an emphasis on growing regions for the firm, as workers are so “transient” and real estate so expensive in London.

The firm, which names many of the large retailers and health care providers among its client base, has a 700-strong staff team across two sites. He added that the talent pools from universities across Sheffield and Leeds enabled the firm to attract the right people and that many stayed because of the interesting work they could undertake and learn from; something he saw as a positive when he first joined.

He also said that the divisions of Deloitte’s Yorkshire practice would look to increase their market share across the region.

Cottee’s Deloitte career started at the firm’s Leeds office in 1993. He subsequently led the tax practice for Deloitte in Yorkshire and the North East for seven years until 2015. More recently Cottee has been leading Deloitte’s private markets business for tax in the UK and is part of the firm’s Tax Executive and Private Markets Executive teams.

Since being appointed in his new role, he has been spreading his time across all areas of the business and it was incredibly busy across the board. He added: “We are not back to the heady days of completing deals in weeks. Deals take longer and are still challenging. But there is plenty of activity and also plenty of capital.”

Cottee has an interest in supporting businesses across Yorkshire of all sizes but said the private markets was an area he would like to grow and further strengthen at Deloitte. “We have relationships with all of the big businesses across the city and the region.

“But of equal importance is the private markets. For me, that is the most exciting part of the job. Start-ups that then scale-up; they are the lifeblood of the regional economy – it is great to see and work with fast growing, dynamic firms across Yorkshire,” he added.

He said it was part of the challenge to work with the private markets to ensure that they are fundable in today’s climate, so that the entrepreneurial flair of the region could be maximized. Cottee added that there were opportunities available in the marketplace for firms to secure PE funding and that it was about working with clients to ensure they exited or scaled-up at the right time.

“There is a huge amount more we can do in the local market place and people will see us become a lot more visible in the market,” he said. As part of his drive to become further integrated into the Yorkshire community and “shout about what we do more,” Cottee has plans for Deloitte to play a bigger role in agendas including Northern Powerhouse. The firm will also be heavily involved in Tour De Yorkshire.

“I can’t afford to just think about the short-term in the businesses because there is so much going on,” he added.

Technology will be one of the areas he will be asking his teams to focus on in the coming months and years, and the restructuring practice is also busy at present.

“Our restructuring practice is strong, and we stand by clients because that’s the right thing to do. Most successful people have had a few bumps along the road,” he added.

Cottee said that while retailers in particular were having a distressed time, the business community needed to remain positive because the market was still thriving. “With every problem case, whether that’s a retailer struggling because of the costs of importing food for example, there are lot of opportunities.

“It’s about looking at the balance sheets and keeping costs under control. I think you have to remain positive. Brexit will happen and lots of my clients are well prepared for that,” he added.

Cottee welcomed the steps in the Yorkshire devolution that have taken place this week with 18 councils submitting a proposal to the Government and stated that he felt the region needed its “fair share” of investment that devolved powers could bring.