Professional service firm Deloitte has named Australia’s David Hill as the next CEO of its Asia Pacific division, with inaugural CEO Cindy Hook to step down after four years in the role.
As anticipated, Australian David Hill has been confirmed via election as the next chief executive of Deloitte’s combined Asia Pacific region, according to the AFR, with Hill to have oversight of some 60,000 regional employees and a business now worth $8.5 billion, having grown by 14 percent last year.
Hill, the sole nominee, will replace inaugural CEO Cindy Hook, who intends to return to her native US after four years in the role.
Hill has been with what is now the world’s biggest professional services firm since 1995, joining upon the completion of a commerce degree with the University of Adelaide. Since then, he has added an MBA with the same institution and other post-graduate leadership certification through INSEAD and Harvard’s Kennedy Business School of Executive Education, helping to power his meteoric ascension to the top.
Since joining Deloitte as a graduate analyst, Hill has steadily moved through the company ranks, first gaining partnership in 2003 after working with the firm across Australia, the UK, US, Japan and Korea. That year, he was named the lead and founding partner of Deloitte’s Corporate Finance practice in South Australia, before later taking on a national leadership role for M&A transaction services and then Deloitte Private.
From there, Hill was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Deloitte Australia in 2015, and then followed Hook as deputy CEO and COO of the firm’s newly-merged Asia Pacific entity three years later. In part a response to the additional travel and isolation burden of Covid-19 over the past two years, Hook late last year announced her intention to not nominate for re-election, and Hill has been considered almost a walk-up start since.
“Our goal is to provide a seamless experience for our clients and unrivalled opportunities for our people across the Asia Pacific; to invest together for maximum impact and to make a positive impact that matters in the communities in which we live and work,” Hill said in a statement on the transition, with the new APAC CEO once considered a viable candidate for the top role in Australia in 2014 – a gig eventually given to Hook.
At the time, Hook became the first woman to leada Big Four firm in Australia, a feat yet to be repeated. Meanwhile, Hill has been elected as her Asia Pacific replacement by a partnership of 3,000-odd across more that two dozen jurisdictions, including branches in Australia, New Zealand, China, Taiwan, Japan and eleven countries in Southeast Asia. As yet, Hook hasn’t given an indication on her future role with the firm.
Sourced from Consultancy.au