Cindy Hook

Cindy Hook is the CEO of Deloitte. As the first female CEO of an Australian Big Four accounting firm, she is the treasurer of Chief Executive Women in Australia and is an advocate of workplace diversity.^[1]

Career

Hook began her career at Deloitte in San Francisco. She joined the firm as an auditor in 1986, where she grew in the Assurance and Advisory practice for 5 years.^[2] In 2009, Hook moved to Australia and became the head of the Assurance and Advisory team. In the same year, she also managed another Assurance and Advisory team which won multiple awards from the The Australian Financial Review.^[3]

In 2015, she was appointed CEO of Deloitte,^[2] following CEO Giam Swiegers who was CEO from 2003 on.^[3] She was "the first woman in the nation’s history to run a Big Four accounting firm".^[4] She then created two new roles – one who advises on risk and works to protect Deloitte’s brand, and another which pursues top-shelf corporate clients.^[5] Although Hook is pushing for Deloitte to continue its increasing growth, she has stated she still aims to keep "a level of consistency that will be positive".^[5]

Influence

Hook advocates for other women to have similar opportunities. Hook is one of the two women that are on the Executive Board, out of a total of thirteen members.^[5] She says that one of her "main priorities as CEO is to create a rich and diverse talent pool so Deloitte can continue to lead in innovation".^[3] She pushes for gender equality, and was disappointed with the number of female firm leaders in the recent year — 23% of the leaders were women — a figure that she hopes to change in her time as CEO.^[3]

References