Deloitte names Richard Houston as senior partner & chief executive

Deloitte has announced Richard Houston as the next senior partner and chief executive of Deloitte North West Europe (NWE) and UK, following his election by the firm’s partners.

Richard is currently managing partner for Deloitte’s NWE and UK consulting businesses, and has over 20 years’ experience in the professional services industry. He will succeed David Sproul, the firm’s current senior partner and chief executive, on 1 June 2019.*

Richard started his career in the financial services industry, spending eight years at HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland in the risk, regulatory and finance functions. He joined Arthur Andersen in 1996 and became a Partner in 1998, before transitioning to Deloitte in 2002.

During his time as leader, Richard has grown the firm’s consulting practice significantly through a greater emphasis on digital technologies and helping clients implement them successfully to transform their business. He has led a number of acquisitions to extend capabilities, including Kaisen, a leadership consultancy of business psychologists, and Market Gravity and Acne, the digital and creative agencies. Alongside this, Richard has built a number of new client offerings through the formation of strategic alliances, including with McLaren Applied Technologies.

As well as leading Deloitte’s NWE consulting business, Richard has sat on the UK executive since 2015 and is a member of Deloitte’s global consulting executive. During his career he has undertaken a wide-range of large, complex and multi-year transformation projects with clients across many industries.

Nick Owen, NWE chairman at Deloitte, says: “With the overwhelming support of our partners from all our businesses across North West Europe, we firmly believe that Richard is the right candidate to lead our firm over the next four years. Not only has Richard transformed our consulting practice during his time as managing partner, he is also a highly respected leader known for his collaborative approach across the firm’s businesses and borders. His passion to help our clients, people and society succeed in the digital age provides us with confidence that he is in a strong position to lead Deloitte in the years ahead.”

Richard Houston comments: “Deloitte brings an unrivalled depth and breadth of skills and industry knowledge to help clients solve their most complex challenges, with a commitment to the highest levels of quality and integrity. It will be an enormous privilege to lead the firm as its next senior partner and chief executive, building on Deloitte’s established pre-eminent market position.

“Our clients and Deloitte’s own profession face an era of substantial change and challenge, and we’re committed to anticipating, managing and leading the response to this. I believe such change presents huge opportunities for Deloitte to make a positive impact on our clients, people and society as a whole.”

Deloitte NWE is the second largest member firm in the Deloitte network, combining operations in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, the Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), Switzerland and the UK. It brings together over 35,000 people and 2,000 partners, combining the firm’s breadth and depth of capabilities in audit and assurance, consulting, financial advisory, and tax across the region.

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Note to editors

*David has served two four-year terms as chief executive – the maximum period possible at the firm.

About Deloitte
In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte LLP, which is among the country's leading professional services firms.

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The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.

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