Feature
Issue No. 3 - December/ 2001/january
Leadership gets Personal
At Base Camp 3, 6500m up the north face of Mt Everest, you get a pretty good idea of what your capabilities are.
Adelaide accountancy principal, Greg Perks and his business development manager, Justin Hogan, set new personal standards for themselves as major sponsors – and members – of the South Australian team that conquered Everest in May this year.
Greg Perks says the triumph, and the associated tragedy, with the death of team leader Mark Auricht on the mountain, has changed him. Now he’s more committed than ever to making the personal side of his life – and those of his work colleagues – as fulfilled as possible.
Spiritual growth aside, the ‘hard’ benefit of Greg’s act of will is that everyone in the business learns how to leave comfort zones.
Perks is the largest independent (i.e. non—associated) accounting firm in the State, now employing more than 100 people across several departments. The firm employed 12 people in 1989. Growth since has been mainly organic, with only one corporate acquisition which brought two people with it.
Greg has focused on being an “accountant to business” from the outset and he says nothing has changed except the average size of his clients.
“Typically a new client has a problem with tax, but when they come in we find they need to protect their assets, that their assets are totally at risk. “The idea is to eliminate that risk as soon as possible,” Greg says.
Ten people at Perks deal solely with estate planning and wealth management, most often for SME clients.
“People in small business work hard in their business and create wealth, but they don’t necessarily know what to do with it.”
Perks operates as a multidisciplinary practice, handling clients’ business and wealth management issues holistically. In this work it’s important to ask clients the right questions, and to word them correctly. During the mid—90s Greg enlisted the...
