Private equity investment fuels major overhaul of Grant Thornton’s associate scheme
Professional services giant Grant Thornton is launching a “brand new associate programme” for its 2027 cohort of associates, CityAM can reveal, as private equity investment from Cinven sets the firm’s ambition for significant growth.
The firm voted in favour of an investment from private equity firm Cinven in 2024.
Speaking to CityAM, Abigail Fisher, chief people officer, explained that the new programme for its 2027 cohort of graduates and school leavers will focus on six new pillars: reward, experience, exposure, quality, diversity, and acceleration to partnership.
The scheme was announced internally at the firm’s partner conference on Tuesday.
On rewards, Fisher, who returned to the firm in January in a leadership role, said Grant Thornton wants to be the “best payers in the market”.
“When you are going into your first job, and there is a £3,000 or £4,000 difference, it matters”.
On its exposure pillar, Fisher stated she wants to revive juniors shadowing senior partners, especially when pitching to clients.
She explained that there is a “missing generation” of juniors who have done a lot of desk work and have less client exposure.
As technology takes over junior tasks, she believes juniors must be trained in sales, communication, and networking.
The final pillar is to provide associates with a faster route to equity partnership.
Unlike many professional services firms, including the Big Four, Grant Thornton has all new partners enter its equity partnership and not at the ‘salaried’ level. Fisher said the firm does this to promote an ownership mindset among its staff.
Grant Thornton investing in partnership
It is not just the juniors that the firm is throwing its new investment at; it is currently seeking to double its partnership count over the next two years.
Back in November, Grant Thornton laid out plans to recruit 160 new partners over the next two years. As of March, the firm appointed 26 new equity partners in the first quarter of 2026.
With many CVs on the market following rounds of redundancies at large professional services firms, especially at the Big Four, Fisher did stress that Grant Thornton is “not saying yes to everybody”.
“We are a high-performance culture… we’re not compromising on quality,” she explained, adding that the firm doesn’t want “massive egos” or culture disruptors.
Fisher added that, in addition to hiring externally, the firm is also seeking to promote partners within. Over the next two to three years, the partnership is expected to be “quite full of new partners, junior partners, mid‑level partners”.
Fisher stated that Grant Thornton wants to move away from the classic once‑a‑year promotion cycle with heavy bureaucracy and, instead, allow someone with a solid business case to be promoted through a “leaner” process.
Private equity reputation on the market
Fisher stressed that Grant Thornton’s culture is one of its biggest assets. However, private equity has a reputation in for putting hard-won culture at risk as new priorities emerge.
Fisher told CityAM that “Yes, there is pressure and pace and everything you think about private equity, it is there… But they’re not doing it in a way that compromises growth; they’re doing it in a way that accelerates growth.”
Cinven is looking at costs, efficiency, and whether people are performing.
She framed this as basic good business, explaining “that’s what every business needs to do to be able to maximise profit and be successful.”
With the investment, there’s greater authority and pressure to break down mini-functions into teams of partners who work exclusively with “their gang” to create a more efficient working system.
She also noted that, with the private equity investment, the strategy is to be expert‑led, as she argued it serves everyone more efficiently than accountants or others trying to take on senior business leadership roles.
The firm hired Fisher into the newly created CPO role in January, and into the partnership, along with Chris Stefani, the finance director from DWF; David Gartside, the chief digital officer from McKinsey; and Frederik Vinten, its new chief commercial officer from FTI Consultant.
“Everything that [Cinven] is doing is to enhance profit, enhance growth, and not compromise our success… but what has been quite refreshing is I see my role as not getting us to the next transaction…. but how do I create a graduate programme that will give us partners in 10 years’ time,” she highlighted.