RSM appoints Con Abbott

National Accounting firm, RSM Bird Cameron, has announced the appointment of a Chief Operating Officer and Chief Information Officer to support its national partnership structure and its future growth plans.

National Chairman, Mr Kim Hutchinson, has announced that Mr Con Abbott will assume the Chief Operating Officer role from July 2008. Mr Abbott was previously General Manager of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Western Australia.

In addition Mr Paul Joseph, who has had a national role with the firm, has been promoted to the newly formed Chief Information Officer role.

Hutchinson, who has been Chairman for the past eight years and was re-elected for a further two years at the recently completed annual Retreat advised that with the growth of the firm over the past two years, the national partnership was looking to partially corporatise its support divisions to gain efficiencies and to ensure Partners were concentrating on client servicing and development. The new appointments will assist the National Executive with strategic and operational matters.

RSM Bird Cameron which is financially integrated across the nation and splits profits on a national basis is keen to leverage off its long established national structure as many of their mid tier competitors are attempting to put national models together.

In addition to Hutchinson's reappointment, Phil Ransom a Melbourne based Audit Partner and Terry Rodoni an Adelaide Business Solutions Partner were elected to the National Executive Committee for 3 years.

"The appointment of an external COO with such wide experience in the profession will assist the firm in the next stages of its development" said Mr Hutchinson.

Those stages include growth in the Sydney and Brisbane markets, exploring practice acquisition in strategic regional locations and further expanding risk assurance and corporate consulting in the national service lines.