The balcony of RSM Ireland’s new offices atop Harcourt Road boasts enviable views across the city centre, but the move is for more than just aesthetics.
Niall May, the managing partner of RSM Ireland, points towards a series of major accountancy and professional services firms scattered around the area.
In a sector traditionally dominated by a few big firms, RSM is seeking to become the fifth largest player in the Irish market, and being located in the city centre is the next step in that growth.
The new office space is certainly comfortable. May says it is a reflection of the firm’s trajectory in recent years. Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers perhaps summed it up best at the opening of the office:
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“RSM has come a long way in the last few months, and I don’t just mean from a church in Ranelagh to a new office on Harcourt Street near Coppers.”
May joined RSM, then RSM Farrell Grant Sparks, in 2013 as a partner and head of audit after 14 years with KPMG. He took over the role of managing partner in early 2024, shortly after RSM UK acquired the Irish business in a “major strategic investment” aimed at accelerating its growth and expanding its market share.
Since the acquisition, RSM has seen its presence in the Irish market grow substantially. The firm’s revenue hit €23.5 million in its financial year ending in March 2024, before growing to €28.2 million earlier this year - a nearly 50 per cent increase on its performance in 2023.
For a man who became an accountant out of a love of numbers, there’s no shock at his ambitions being numerical.
For the coming year, RSM Ireland is projecting “strong double-digit growth”, buoyed by a new global partnership of all of RSM’s firms.
RSM’s UK and Irish operations have joined forces with their US and Canadian sister firms. The new agreement falls short of a full financial merger that had been mooted, but the leadership structure is expected to be an alternative to taking money from private equity while also allowing RSM to challenge for a bigger stake in the market.
“We don’t want to be the Big Four. We want to focus on the middle market, and see a massive opportunity there,” he says. The Big Four firms being Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC.
The new 23,000-person partnership, amounting to $5 billion (€4.3 billion) in revenue, May says, will give the Irish firm the opportunity and support to target new markets and create new services.
The integration with its UK and US firms is aimed at creating an offering distinct from what other players in the market are providing.
“When we target clients globally, we will be going to market together as RSM - we are not introducing RSM Ireland, UK or US, we’re just one firm - that makes it more seamless,” he says. “Global clients want global solutions, and that is what we are trying to deliver.”
Could being part of a global partnership strip the firm of the agility needed to keep step with an ever changing market? May says no, pointing to the tie-up with the UK firm and the growth they have seen since, but also crediting the structure of the deal as retaining the autonomy for individual firms.
“You have got the best of both worlds,” he says, “We have already seen some tangible benefits [from the UK partnership]. We are winning work that, had we stayed by ourselves, we would not have been able to win.”
As the partnership is set to kick off in January, the firm has set its sights on doubling its 250-person workforce in the next three years.
Having left the Big Four himself out of a desire to be “more entrepreneurial”, he says that joining a middle-market accountancy firm offers more room for advancement as the firm grows and it looks to develop its own talent.
Forgoing the traditional corner office, the firm’s managing partner does not have his own space in the RSM building, instead joining the hot-desking approach common across the organisation.
“When you look at the firm, people are our most important assets,” May said, noting that having a “highly motivated” and engaged workforce is aided by having an “open, transparent and comfortable” culture.
The opportunity of shaping a rapidly expanding firm is a significant benefit when it comes to hiring.
“People like the RSM story, they see the growth trajectory, they see a very young brand relative to some of our competitors - we’re only nine years old in Ireland.”
May says the skills for which firms are looking are changing.
“We are definitely changing our grad model. We are looking for more digital analytics skills, as opposed to your traditional accountant,” with RSM aiming to embrace AI and the automation of more routine tasks.
He says this allows accountants to focus more on providing insights for customers and makes it a more “challenging and rewarding” environment for graduates.
Accountancy is typically a low-risk environment, and RSM is looking to manage the risks that come with using AI.
“AI doesn’t always give you the right answer, it can often give you the wrong answer! We certainly see it as an opportunity, but only when it’s used in the right way.”
The right way, he says, is to have policies and procedures around its use.
The use and integration of AI will see some accountants “move from doing to reviewing” as large portions of, for example, tax compliance work can be automated - but a human eye is needed to review.
“Ultimately, this is a relationships-driven business, automation will never change that” but it will have an impact on how accountants work, he says.
He doesn’t see the technology doing accountants out of a job, certainly RSM have no plans to reduce its graduate intake.
The key, May says, is to be open to change.
