Yahoo Finance 'I wasn't an obvious choice as partner but our firm's success is down to retaining talent'
My First Boss: The people who helped shape business leaders
Natasha Frangos is managing partner of Haysmacintyre, a top 25 firm of chartered accountants and tax advisors.
Having joined Haysmacintyre in 2000, Frangos is the firm’s first female managing partner – one of the youngest partners in its history – and a champion of diversity and talent development.
There were a group of partners who were instrumental in laying the foundations and building the business today when I joined Hays Allan and Macintyre and Co – two top 50 accountancy firms – as an audit trainee in 2000, before we merged as Haysmacintyre.
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The firm had started the trend of retaining talent: who would make a difference for us to succeed and who you could see had the hunger and ability to help you grow the business – rather than basing it on years of service. The two of us who got promoted perhaps weren’t the obvious choices back in 2009, as we were surrounded by white men as peers.
The early partners I worked with laid those foundations. I am grateful to Simon Wilks and Ian Cliffe in particular who picked us and put us forward and really influenced who I am as an advisor and a leader today.
Simon has one of the best strategic thinking minds and it was this concept of backing talent that came through early on. If you want to get a message across, it’s all about the delivery, choosing the right words to share a vision and bringing people with you.
When I was promoted I didn’t have a partner portfolio. It wasn’t because someone was retiring – it was a risky move but they backed me to win my own work which I was passionate about doing.
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We didn’t have a ready-made client portfolio and this allowed me to go out and meet businesses. It’s where an affiliation with creative media and tech emerged as I found the people in those sectors really interesting.
I’ve come from a family who have run their own businesses – hairdressers and a local bakery my uncle owned in Streatham – and have always grown up in an environment where you got involved.
I didn’t realise it at the time but it definitely helped my confidence in speaking to people. Having that early interaction has benefited me now as an advisor. You can genuinely be interested in individuals and form relationships with them.
This allowed me to later gain so much insight into so many different businesses and organisations, from some of the top independent schools to fast-growth tech and media agencies. It wasn’t a sector-focused firm back then and I got to see management teams and CEOs and how they work. You get to soak up a lot of insight as an auditor which is a real privilege when you are going into these businesses every few weeks.
Ian is exceptional at creating a long lasting network of relationships. I learned the power of being real and genuine in yourself which was an important attribute for me to see as a young woman, who would often be in a minority in the room.
Meanwhile, Simon showed me that it’s okay to be a bit difficult at times and to be the one asking the awkward questions until you are satisfied you getting the answers that you desire.
They, along with the other partners, both have ambition and setting out a vision of where we are going is something I hope I have retained in my leadership of the firm, which is projected to reach turnover of more than £100m in 2027.
Things don’t alway go to plan and I always go to Ian when you want to hear the worst case scenario. He will play it out and talk it through. It’s a marathon not a sprint and so I’ve learned to focus on the positive changes I am making and how I am progressing the firm.
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Around 18 months ago, the sector has been quite tight for talent due to the Big Four accountancy firms hoovering up the market for trainees.
As a mid-tier firm that was a big challenge for us, as without our people we won’t have enough to service our clients which would restrict growth ambitions that we had.
We had to focus on our messaging in the market and why people would come to work for Haysmacintyre.
We challenged ourselves to differentiate ourselves from, say, a top 10 who might have been paying more with greater resources and a more advanced selection of benefits as a smaller business.
With around 60% of our partners being homegrown, that was a compelling offering to the market. We have a better work-life balance and we found it had a real change thanks to our deep dive into the firm's messaging.
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