If there’s one man who knows that business is a marathon and not a sprint, it’s John O’Callaghan of Evelyn Partners. He tells Nick Mulcahy about his ambitious plans.

Accountancy practice and business advisor Smith & Williamson has a strong market niche in Ireland servicing the requirements of entrepreneurs, owner-managers and high net worth individuals. The UK firm’s market entry to Ireland commenced in 2008, when Oliver Freaney & Co, which had been on the go since 1958, was subsumed.

The practice has expanded a lot since then, with the establishment of a specialist investment management and pension planning team in 2015, and LHM Casey McGrath merging into S&W in 2018.

In 2020, Smith & Williamson merged with UK peer Tilney, becoming the fourth largest UK wealth management business, and the sixth largest UK professional services firm by fee income. Tilney Smith & Williamson was a bit of a mouthful, so now there has been a rebrand to Evelyn Partners.

The new brand name harks back to Evelyn Gardens, a London address where one of the company’s founders pioneered the expansion of the original business in 1893. 

There is also leadership change at the top of Evelyn Partners in Ireland. John O’Callaghan has taken on the role of managing partner, succeeding Paul Wyse, who steered the Ireland practice for two decades. O’Callaghan has joined from BDO, where he had been a partner since 2006, and his brief is to expand the business through organic growth, strategic hires and acquisitions.

In Association with

O’Callaghan’s entrepreneurial experience may strike a chord with some of the firm’s clients. He entered the accountancy profession through a commencement course in the old College of Industrial Relations in Ranelagh, trained with Coopers & Lybrand and was exam qualified by the age of 21.

When he finished up the training contract a year later, O’Callaghan relocated to the Coopers office in Sydney, lured by the sun and the outdoor lifestyle. After a couple of years, O’Callaghan jumped out of practice into Westfield, the shopping centre giant that at the time had acquired a television station.

A brief spell of troubleshooting internal audit issues concluded when he met Australian wife-to-be Caroline, whose family owned an accounting practice. The pair decided they should go down that route too and bought a small firm.
The joint venture went well. O’Callaghan recalls that one key learning was adopting the 80/20 rule. “Every few years we would review the client base and keep the 20% of clients who were contributing the most revenue and profit and sell off the other 80%,” O’Callaghan explains.

“It was scary the first time because you would see your gross number drop, but it was amazing how the process built up a client base who wanted to work with you and who you wanted to work with.”

There are two types of Irish immigrants to Australia: those who stay and those who don’t. With an Australian wife, the smart money would have been on John O’Callaghan falling into the former category. However, a family illness in 2003 prompted consideration being given by the couple to heading back north of the equator with their three young children.

“We decided to up sticks if we could sell the house for more than it was worth and find a buyer for the practice, and if there was a good opportunity in Ireland. I figured, that’s grand, we won’t have to go. But we sold the house to the first people who looked at it, and the same with the business. Anybody who knows me will tell you that Caroline wears the trousers, and it was actually her idea.

“Looking back on it now, I think Europe is a great place to bring up a family. I quite like the idea that you can get on a plane and land somewhere a couple of hours later that’s very different. In Australia you can fly for nine hours, and when you disembark what you hear is ‘how you going mate?’.”

O’Callaghan scouted out Dublin before coming home. Because he had been away for 17 years, he decided that replicating the small firm wouldn’t work. He touched base with Anthuan Xavier, who was cutting a dash on the Dublin accountancy scene with BDO Simpson Xavier. 

“We just hit it off,” says O’Callaghan. “We had lunch and afterwards he walked me around their building showing me where my desk would be. At the time anybody who was entrepreneurial and looking for growth wanted to be working with Simpson Xavier. That was a big pull factor for me as I like to work with people who own their business. Anthuan’s pitch was that my entrepreneurial spirit was what they wanted. He said you won’t have to operate any differently than when you had your own firm, and it was largely true.”

BDO Simpson Xavier morphed into just BDO, and after nearly two decades with the firm O’Callaghan received the Smith & Williamson headhunter’s call. O’Callaghan reflects that due to the pandemic, when everyone stepped back and pondered their daily routines, he was more amenable to answering that approach.

“I wasn’t thinking about moving or doing something else. I engaged out of curiosity but then it became apparent that the new role was an opportunity that I could not pass up. It’s absolutely what I love.”

Ireland has a multitude of accountancy and business advisory firms, large and small. In O’Callaghan’s market analysis, there are seven public interest entity regulated firms – PwC, KPMG, EY, Deloitte, Grant Thornton, BDO and Mazars. These large firms audit banks and insurance companies and that has a certain focus and obligation that goes with it. They are also active in every segment of the market, but O’Callaghan contends that the primary focus does make a difference. 

“We don’t do public interest entities but we have a bigger audit department than probably anybody outside the Big Four,” says O’Callaghan. “What that means is that we are very focused on the SME. They are the clients that we can bring value to, and who can benefit from what we do. We provide all the required compliance functions but we also have a particular DNA, personality, and knowledge from an advisory point of view, because we understand these businesses. At the same time, the Dublin practice is part of a much larger UK operation, which has benefits too.”

O’Callaghan says his ambition for Evelyn Partners in Dublin is to expand fee income by three to five times the current level within the next five years. The strategy will centre on mergers, and developing service lines.

“We need to look forward because in five years’ time many things are going to be different,” he explains. “It’s about being ahead of the game and putting in those service lines. Some of those offerings should probably be separate, while others are more complementary. That’s very much part of the process that we’re working through at moment – identifying service lines that we are going to add on.”

The new Evelyn Partners boss won’t lack for energy in reaching his stretch target. O’Callaghan (58) says his fitness regime takes in marathon running and he notes that only 5,600 people in the world have completed the six marathon ‘majors’. “I’ve done two and I’ve got another two this year. That’s my latest quest.”