Grant Thornton to increase staff by a third with 400 jobs

Financial services company Grant Thornton is to increase its headcount by one-third over the next two years with the creation of 400 new jobs.

The announcement was made on Monday at the company’s new headquarters on City Quay.

It said the “driving force” behind the jobs was the emergence of new international expansion opportunities, a strong pipeline of projects, as well as growing client demand.

It said it was targeting growth of 25 per cent in client revenue by 2020. Since 2012 it has grown its turnover by more than 130 per cent to €110 million and has expanded from a team of 30 partners and 375 staff, to 49 partners and more than 1,350 staff.

EU bank unification would allow more banks enter Irish market, says Lane

---

Donnery eyes domestic victory after failure to land big ECB job

---

Financial sector has ‘make or break role’ in averting catastrophic climate change

---

Marshall Wace prepares for Brexit with Dublin expansion

---

Of the 400 new hires, half will be experienced candidates and will be sourced from a range of areas including financial services advisory, tax, audit and consulting, as well as specialist areas such as cyber and forensics, technology and aviation.

New graduates will account for the remaining 200 roles. Grant Thornton’s latest graduate recruitment campaign has already resulted in a 50 per cent increase year-on-year in applicants looking to secure a training contract with the company for 2019.

The roles will be predominantly based at Grant Thornton’s head office in Dublin, with opportunities also at its offices in Belfast, Cork, Galway, Kildare, Limerick and Longford.

Economic crisis

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, who was at Grant Thornton’s office to mark the announcement, said the work of accountancy firms was key to avoiding a return to the days of economic crisis.

“We continue to wrestle with the consequences of painful financial mismanagement and strive to ensure this never happens again,” he said. “We lost our sense of economic reality during the Celtic Tiger.

“We lost track of the fundamentals of what a successful stable economy and society should and could be.

“Our political institutions, our banks and much more, stopped dealing with the real language of the economy and dealt instead with unsustainable mirages. They sacrificed transparency and real innovation. We paid dearly for this.”

Diversify

Grant Thornton managing partner Mick McAteer said the company would seek to diversify as it gets larger.

“The role of accountants is evolving, as is the regulatory, political and legal landscape, and the needs of our clients within that,” he said.

“We are trusted advisors to a growing Irish and international client base on just about every facet of their business today, across consulting and advisory services.

“With new growth, comes further diversification and the need for exceptional people from a range of backgrounds.”

To accommodate the growth, Grant Thornton has also relocated to a custom-built new headquarters on City Quay.

Leased from Irish Life, the seven-storey building was designed by Henry J Lyons, the fit-out designed by MCA architects and built by Bennett Construction with input from Grant Thornton throughout the design, build and fit-out.

Occupying six of seven floors in the building, the move provides Grant Thornton with 115,000 square feet of floor space. It has an open plan layout with a roof top terrace. Staff also have access to a subsidised restaurant, coffee docks on every floor, games area, gym and yoga/fitness studio, as well as secure underground parking for more than 135 bikes and charging points for electric vehicles.