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Deloitte New Zealand

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3.8
  • #5 in Accounting & advisory
  • > 100,000 employees

Chris Wakefield

Given the end result of a deal can be life-changing financially for our clients, it is incredibly rewarding to help contribute towards that end goal, where they are able to realise the value of the result of years of their sacrifices, investment and hard work!

What's your job about?

The Corporate Finance team at Deloitte advises clients both large and small - mainly shareholders, management teams and investment funds, typically in connection to transactions. Our main services are M&A (mergers and acquisitions) advisory, financial due diligence, valuation, and financial modelling.

My work has mostly focussed on sell-side M&A, where we help owners and founders of successful kiwi businesses to step back and sell their business onto a new owner/investor. This allows them to realise and extract the value they have been investing in and growing for years.

My day-to-day work depends on what stage within a transaction process we are in. It can include financial analysis to prepare documentation for potential investors, helping facilitate the due diligence process and answer prospective buyer’s questions, or modelling various offers and transaction structures to determine how much money would change hands as the deal closes! I have found M&A advisory to be a great combination of the other services our team provides (valuation, modelling, due diligence) as these skills are utilised at various stages throughout a transaction.

It’s worth noting that transactions don’t tend to be as quick and easy as TV shows like Suits make them look! They tend to take 3 to 12 months from planning stages through to signing a deal and money changing hands. The positive of this, is getting to learn so much about each client’s business – I have already worked with businesses in water bottling, aged receivables collection, roof tiling and more!

What's your background?

I was born in Christchurch, and it being home to both my immediate and extended family, I lived and studied there right up until moving to Auckland in 2020 to start my graduate job!

I studied a BCom in Finance and Accounting, and then a Master of Applied Finance and Economics at University. I hadn’t started with this as the plan, I ended up changing my major once I discovered Finance (not something you get much exposure to before university). Then after an audit internship at Deloitte, and realising my passion for corporate finance, I went back to university to get a master’s degree to help improve my chances of landing a job in Auckland.

A big part of my university journey was running a student club called ‘The Investment Society’ for 3 years (President in 2019), which organised events and competitions to promote financial literacy and encourage careers in finance. Through this I met passionate, like-minded students which became very helpful when applying for jobs as we could share our collective knowledge and experiences to help each other be successful, in what can be an extremely daunting and stressful process.

I applied for the graduate position in early 2019 (you need to be prepared a year in advance), going through multiple interviews with different members of the team. Now, I am in my second year, having started in February 2020, time has flown by and I have learned and developed so much already!

Could someone with a different background do your job?

Yes, but it depends!

I think the most important thing is whether you have the passion, intellectual ability, and interpersonal skills to work in this industry. The specific subjects you studied, I would argue, are less important if you can demonstrate these – especially if you have extra-curriculars and job/internship experience to back it up.

Our industry is especially beginning to recognise the value that data analytics and programming skills can add to our traditional services, which creates opportunities for students from different backgrounds to a typical finance/economics/accounting qualification to enter the industry and add value.

What's the coolest thing about your job?

Here are three cool things:

Given the end result of a deal can be life-changing financially for our clients, it is incredibly rewarding to help contribute towards that end goal, where they are able to realise the value of the result of years of their sacrifices, investment and hard work!

During a deal, we get the opportunity to learn so much about our client’s business and understand the industry dynamics they face.

Even at a junior level, there are plenty of opportunities to use your initiative and take ownership of various aspects of projects and client deliverables.

What are the limitations of your job?

One thing that some might see as a limitation is that professional services is a team sport. If you prefer to ‘go it alone’ and aren’t a big fan of working and collaborating in a team, that’s fine, lots of successful entrepreneurs have that trait, but professional services won’t be for you. We don’t do things all on our own – we come together as a team and share responsibilities, challenges, and successes.

Secondly, our clients are paying for our work – so you do need to want that responsibility – at times this means handling pressure, high expectations and managing time well.

3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...

  • Make the most of the incredible flexibility University can provide (I’m thinking about sleep-ins and the regular holidays), sadly you’re unlikely to have it again, at least not to the same extent!
  • Start paying attention to what is happening in the industry (i.e. business news and listed company announcements). This can be helpful both for interviews and once you start work.
  • Don’t feel like you need to perfectly plan out your career and you don’t need to think of it as a ladder – this perspective might close you off from some great opportunities you hadn’t previously considered.