Welcome back to Galway Chamber’s Business of the Week series. This week, we spoke to Gillian Lowth and Florita Dolly of PwC Galway.
Introduce Yourself
Gillian Lowth, Assurance Partner and Florita Dolly, Tax Director, PwC Galway.
What range of services do you offer to clients?
Our locally based PwC Galway team’s service offering includes tax, audit and assurance services across international and indigenous business and financial services. We also assist businesses with innovative and technology-focused initiatives.
How do you plan to expand over the next few years?
PwC currently employs 30 people in Galway and our new central location gives us the ability to more than double our workforce to 70 people over the next two years. This is because PwC is experiencing significant new opportunities in the West so the expansion of our Galway office and strengthening of our team is a natural response. Our expansion plans will give graduates the opportunity to live and work locally while having the benefits of developing a successful career in a global organisation. We are also giving experienced hires the opportunity to return home to Galway. Very exciting!
What does Galway as a location offer to PwC?
Our new state of the art offices are located in the heart of Eyre Square which provides a superb environment for our clients and people to work collaboratively. Galway has proved to be a great base for indigenous businesses and global companies establishing a European base. Being a University City, Galway is a perfect location for our growth plans, giving us the ability to continue to attract the best and brightest graduates. We give them the opportunity to have an unrivaled work experience with a variety of clients in an innovative and technology focused environment, while supporting them in their professional exams.
How has being a member of Galway Chamber helped PwC?
We have found working with the Galway Chamber exceptionally beneficial for our business. The proactive team there are enormously helpful, and we have collaborated on a number of events in the region. The events the Chamber itself holds are superb networking opportunities for our people, and we have made great connections in these forums. We look forward to working with the Chamber in the future (keep an eye out!), including our forthcoming sponsorship of the Summer Business Lunch, and our continued sponsorship of the President’s Award in the Annual Business Awards.
What are the main challenges facing clients in the market today?
It goes without saying that Brexit is the number one challenge facing clients today. We continue to advise businesses to plan for a hard (“no-deal”) exit on 12 April. While the dialogue between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn will continue, the letter sent on Friday (5 April) from the Prime Minister to the EU requesting a further extension of Article 50 until 30 June can be seen as a positive move. We are assisting our clients with these preparations and guiding them through this difficult time of uncertainty.
Succession planning can be challenging for the indigenous family business sector, which is also strong in the region. PwC’s 2019 Irish Family Business Survey reveals that 53% of family businesses plan to pass on management or ownership to the next generation. However the vast majority of these have not taken steps in preparing for these changes. We are helping these businesses put appropriate structures in place to enable them to avail of tax reliefs such as the entrepreneur relief and the retirement relief, which can be of great benefit when planning for the exit of a longstanding member of the family business.
The main challenge facing the medtech sector, which is a key employer in the west of Ireland, is the war for talent. So, we are helping companies with tax efficient employee remuneration, for example, growth shares, share options and KEEP shares, which also support key talent retention.
How does PwC stand out within such a competitive market?
At PwC Galway, helping clients to achieve their goals is at the heart of what we do. As well as our growing local team in the tax, assurance and audit areas, we access all the broader resources of PwC both nationally and internationally. Our Galway team brings all these deep specialists to bear in the work they undertake, resulting in a seamless experience from our clients’ perspectives. Our unique, collective and renowned blend of expertise and experience means we are Ireland’s number one professional services firm. The work we do is driven by our commitment to quality and going beyond best practice. We have motivated and energetic people from a wide variety of backgrounds who ensure that clients receive the depth and breadth of insight required to negotiate an increasingly complex global environment.
One Galway Central
Forster Street
Galway
(091) 764 620
