Mr Renjen wants uniformity across Deloitte's 225,000 global workforce in a bid to increase the mobility of practitioners and work packets.

With the same training, experiences and evaluation criteria, he believes a manager from Tokyo will be the same as one in Melbourne.

This should enable mobility in and out of the country but will also increase competition for the best roles within the firm.

"For an organisation like ours effective management is actually quite simple – consistency," Mr Renjen said.

"That's what clients expect when they hire Deloitte. Our talent demands it."

Deloitte Global CEO Punjit Renjen in Melbourne, Monday 14th September 2015. Photo: Josh Robenstone. Deloitte Global CEO Punjit Renjen in Melbourne, Monday 14th September 2015. Photo: Josh Robenstone. JOSH ROBENSTONE

Key countries

Deloitte has invested close to $US350 million in two academies to increase collaboration and consistency across regions, in Singapore and Europe. The facilities will be modelled on a purpose-built campus in Dallas established in the wake of the global financial crisis.


The Australian firm refused to co-invest in the venture unless China, India and Japan were represented.

"Those are the key countries that I need my people exposed to," Deloitte Australia chief executive Cindy Hook said.

Deloitte is late to the party on regional collaboration and international consistency.

EY (formerly Ernst & Young), the trailblazer in this field, spent the last four years pursuing a regional integration model, encouraging staff to think less about their own country patch and more like multinational clients who want seamless delivery worldwide, and to tap the best expertise regardless of its physical location. It was a tough nut to crack, and in June EY announced it would hand back more control to domestic equity partners.

The charismatic Mr Renjen made headlines this year when he became the first Indian-born global CEO of a big-four accountancy firm. Born in an Indian backwater, his industrialist Hindu father became a refugee when the country was divided. Renjen was yanked out of an elite boarding school when the family factory went bankrupt. Renjen later won a scholarship to the United States where he got a job at a company he had never heard of previously: Deloitte.

"I fell into consulting and taught myself to love it," said the 53-year-old, who now lives in Portland, Oregon.

Recent firsts

Mr Renjen's appointment to the top job at the world's biggest audit and accounting firm on revenue of $US34.2 billion is as much a statement about how much of a societal hot-button diversity and inclusion has become, as it is about his individual capability.


US-born Cindy Hook recently became the first woman to lead a big-four accountancy firm in Australia.

Ahead of Deloitte's global financial results, due out next week, Mr Renjen said the firm is striving "for best, not biggest".

Colleagues say Mr Renjen has provided an unprecedented level of clarity on whole-of-firm priorities since officially taking office in June.

He is also actively re-engineering the definition of success to focus on an individual's impact for clients and in the community using 360 degree feedback mechanisms.

"We spend three-to-four months a year evaluating ourselves across multiple metrics. I want the first question [in that process] to be: What impact did you generate for the clients you serve? The second: what kind of a mentor were you? Before we get into any discussion about revenues," Mr Renjen said.

Tall order

This is a tall order in a numbers-obsessed organisation populated by A-type personalities like Deloitte.

Mr Renjen is optimistic about Deloitte's long-term growth prosects, saying a market correction driven by China's sharemarket meltdown and fear of the US federal bank raising interest rates was "overdue".


He is particularly bullish about Deloitte's growth prospects in India and Africa – where he is expected to announce a substantial investment later this week.

Mr Renjen concedes Deloitte will fall victim to corruption and malpractice but will not violate its ethics to expand in emerging markets.

"We're 225,000 people, 10,000 partners. It's my job to lay the guard rails. But when you have 225,000 people once in a while you do make mistakes", he said.

"We have sacred trust that society has given us. One serious mistake by somebody who works for our firm can [cause] irreparable damage to our firm. That's why we spend a lot of time on the intangibles to see if people fit."