You know the list I'm talking about.

It lives somewhere between the last partners meeting and the one before that. It has items on it that have been carried forward — some of them for months, possibly years. Develop an advisory service. Review our pricing model. Build a specialisation. Look at how we're using technology. Invest in business development.

Important items. Items that every partner in the room agrees matter. Items that, if acted on, would genuinely change the trajectory of the firm.

And yet, meeting after meeting, they get noted, discussed briefly, and carried forward again. Not because the partners don't care. But because no-one has the time — and more precisely, because no-one owns them.

The Structure Is the Problem

Partners wear many hats simultaneously. They're fee earners, client relationship managers, team leaders, technical reviewers, and nominally responsible for the firm's future strategy plus all the detail that comes in behind that — all at once. The managing partner carries the heaviest load of all, responsible for the day-to-day running of the firm while also being expected to lead its development, AND in most cases run his or her own client fees.

It's an impossible brief. And the inevitable casualty is everything on that list — the strategic work, the service development, the transformation initiatives that require sustained focus over weeks and months rather than the fragments of attention a busy partner can spare between client deadlines.

The problem isn't the partners. The problem is the structure. And the structure has a solution.

Introducing the Executive Partner

The Executive Partner is not a managing partner. That distinction matters. The managing partner owns the firm's leadership — its culture, its people, its day-to-day direction. That role belongs to someone inside, and rightly so.

The Executive Partner is something different: a senior peer who sits alongside the partnership, carries the credibility to engage as an equal, and takes genuine ownership of the strategic initiatives that keep getting deferred. Think of it as the partner with available time that you've always needed — someone you can hand things to, and trust that they'll actually get done.

The scope of the role is shaped by what's on that list. Typically, it includes some or all of the following:

• Building or structuring a genuine business advisory service line
• Developing industry or service specialisations that differentiate the firm
• Reviewing and restructuring pricing to reflect the value being delivered
• Leading technology transformation and digital advisory initiatives
• Driving business development strategy and client acquisition frameworks
• Acting as a sounding board for partner conversations and enhancing partner outcomes

In short: everything the partnership knows it should be doing but has never been able to give the sustained attention it deserves.

Why It Has to Be a Peer

This is the part that matters most, and the part that is most often underestimated.

Firms sometimes try to solve this problem by appointing an internal manager, getting a more experienced practice manager, hiring a consultant, or tasking a junior partner with a portfolio of strategic projects. These roles have their place and make a difference in their areas, but they don’t address the partner to do list — not because the people aren't capable, but because the role requires something they don't have: the standing to engage with partners as an equal, based on experience and achievements.

Partners in accounting firms are, by nature, independent thinkers. They've built their client bases, their reputations and their billings on their own expertise and judgment. They don't easily take direction from the people in these other roles because they perceive as junior to them — professionally or experientially. It’s not intentional, it just is.

The Executive Partner works because they sit at the same table — with the experience, the track record and the commercial credibility to have honest conversations, push back when needed (respectfully as always), and hold the partnership accountable for decisions it has already agreed to make. Not as a critic. As a peer who is genuinely invested in the firm's success.

The Partnership Has to Buy In

​One thing needs to be said plainly: this arrangement only works if the partnership genuinely wants it to.

The Executive Partner is not there to impose change. They're there to enable it — to take the things partners have already agreed are important and make them real. That requires a partnership that is willing to hand over genuine ownership of those initiatives, and to engage seriously when the EP comes back with recommendations, challenges or difficult questions.

The firms that will benefit most from this model are the ones that have the self-awareness to recognise what's on their list — and the honesty to admit that, without a structural change, it will still be there in twelve months.

The ROI

Some firms will look at this and think – “we’ll do without the overhead thank you”. But is it really that? Structured correctly, accompanied by a willingness to let go and an appropriate level of authority, the role should return valuable time to senior professionals. Across say 6 partners, if you assume the role returns collectively 10 hours a week for client-facing work.  At $500 an hour, that’s over $250,000.  If I am over-estimating and it’s only 6 hours a week – that is still over $150,000. And if your partnership is 8, 10 or more partners, the ROI can be more, depending on how the role is structured.

But here’s the real payback.  How much momentum has now been created from getting things done – valuable business improvement tasks and other ideas now implemented? What’s the revenue upside? What’s the impact on staff retention?

What Changes When the List Gets Done

When you consider just what is on the “outstanding” list, the firms that take the real step to make things happen and invest in their own future don't just grow —

• They become different kinds of firms.
• They attract clients who value expertise.
• They retain ambitious staff.
• They stop running to stand still.

That list sitting at the bottom of the partner’s meeting agenda isn't a minor inconvenience. It's the gap between the firm you are today and the firm you're capable of becoming.

The question is whether you keep carrying it forward — or find someone to own it.

I've spent more than thirty years in public practice — including national leadership roles across one of Australia's largest mid-tier firms — doing exactly the kind of work that ends up on that list. If this blog resonates, I'd welcome a conversation about what an Executive Partner arrangement could look like for your firm.