Even after being forced to spin off their audit divisions in the wake of the Enron scandal, these accounting/consulting organizations are perhaps more powerful and larger than ever. So reports Fortune.
One of the most venerable, Deloitte, made a historic announcement recently that it was appointing the first-ever female CEO to head up a Big 4 firm. Cathy Englebert, 50, formerly the chair and CEO of Deloitte’s audit subsidiary and a Deloitte employee for nearly 30 years, will take the helm March 11.
As CEO, she assumes responsibility for the firm’s $15 billion in annual revenue and 65,000 employees. In a recent interview, Englebert spoke about Deloitte’s emphasis on gender and ethnic diversity (“Women and minorities account for about 66% of our new hires…”) and how the business has evolved since she joined the firm in 1986.
Englebert likes to ask prospective hires how they envision Fortune 500 companies five or ten years down the road, and says the best career advice she was given came from mentors who told her to “…take risks and not stand still.”