Career journey: Brian Folkes

March 19, 2024

You may have chief financial officers of billion-dollar companies asking you for insight. Often, you’re one of the first people they call.

—Brian Folkes, Audit & Assurance partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP

With an accounting and finance double major, Brian Folkes knew Deloitte would have opportunities suited to his interests. Following graduation, he met a series of early-career Audit & Assurance (A&A) professionals. “They were an impressive group—very smart with a curiosity and desire to learn. I could see myself having fun with them and learning a lot.”

After speaking with professionals throughout A&A, Brian applied for an entry-level position and received an offer to join Deloitte full-time. The new job kicked off a period of rapid development. “Audit and public accounting are team-oriented professions,” Brian explains. “You get the opportunity to quickly develop management skills, which are extremely helpful, no matter where your career may take you.”

To Brian, the biggest surprise about his accounting career at Deloitte was the need for interpersonal and management know-how.

“Skills like these are just as important as understanding a company’s financials because they frame every interaction with clients and coworkers. They also may determine the efficiency, effectiveness, and success of a project. “I don’t think I realized how important they would become so early in my career and how they’d evolve as the marketplace and our clients’ challenges became more complex,” Brian said.

Becoming a trusted service provider

In his current role, Brian serves consumer product industry clients, where he works with a range of public and private companies, prominently those in travel, hospitality, and retail.

“After eight to ten years with Deloitte, chief financial officers of these companies began asking me for insights. Often, I found, I was the first person they’d call to raise potential issues or ask for perspectives,” Brian observes. “Deloitte, through its breadth and depth of resources, development opportunities, and diverse subject matter research, has equipped me to have these interactions, and I know my clients are getting the latest market insights that we have to share.”

“The audit has changed significantly during my decade-plus career. We now embed advanced technology into our audits, and are continuously investing in innovation, talent, and resources that continue to evolve the way Deloitte executes an audit,” he said.

One example is Deloitte Omnia’s suite of capabilities, which empowers teams to perform substantive analytical procedures by applying predictive analytics and using regression analysis to develop customized audit analysis, enhanced visualizations, and centralized data dashboards.

“Where do we stand on progress? What do we need to escalate to the client, and how timely is the escalation? All this is visible in real-time across teams. Omnia helps us execute our work more effectively and efficiently, allowing us to share information with clients and across the audit team in real-time,” Brian said.

“In order to showcase our technology and share perspectives on our audit strategy and capabilities, we showed a client how we’re auditing revenue globally, using Omnia’s enhanced visualizations for each of the countries where they have operations. The visualizations resonate with client representatives all the way up to the audit committee of the company’s board of directors,” Brian said. “Once they see how you’re auditing a balance, they understand the thought process behind it and are more likely to grasp the effort behind giving assurance to their financial statements.”
 

We now embed advanced technology into our audits investing in innovations, talent, and resources shaping the future of the audit.
 

The importance of the journey

If this makes a career in Audit & Assurance sound intimidating, Brian urges aspiring accountants not to worry, as he joined Deloitte as a campus hire at the very start of his career. “Just keep an open mind. We all have found ourselves at the beginning of a career journey and have relied on people to teach us, mentor us, and help us grow. And in addition, the development opportunities and career experiences available at Deloitte are incredible and have been designed to set you up for success,” he says.

“It has been extremely gratifying for me to reflect on how my role as an auditor has grown, how the profession continues to evolve, and what I’ve had the opportunity to experience at Deloitte. My career has taken me around the world—London, Rome, Budapest, Singapore, Auckland, and more—and has given me a significant, diverse global network who I consider to be colleagues for life.”

Discover your impact at Deloitte

Explore careers in Audit & Assurance.

Brian joined Deloitte as a campus hire. We offer students a variety of opportunities to get to know Deloitte. From internships, competitions, and full-time roles to scholarships and conferences, we look for students who will become tomorrow’s business leaders and contribute to our collective purpose. 

Discover the pride of working at Deloitte, where you’re part of a community of people united by their drive to make an impact. A place where you’re celebrated for who you are, your curiosity is fueled by challenges, and you are given the tools you need to grow and thrive. Learn more about life at Deloitte and meet our Deloitte Insiders.