The firm’s former Australia country head shares why she backed Marshall Bromwich as her successor
Earlier this month, Alison Deitz officially let go of the reins of Norton Rose Fulbright’s (NRF) Australia office after six years at the helm. In that time, Deitz weathered many storms as a leader, from the COVID-19 pandemic to legacy issues.
In the first part of this interview, Deitz outlines what characterised each of her terms as NRF’s Australia country head, and tells Australasian Lawyer what she saw in Marshall Bromwich that made him the ideal successor.
After two terms as Australia country head, how does it feel to be stepping down from the role?
As my second and final term as Australia country head comes to an end, it will be for others to determine my legacy, but personally I feel deeply satisfied that as a business we have achieved what I had hoped we would achieve when I was asked to take on the role of Australian managing partner (as it was then called) in 2020.
My first term was about leading through COVID, dealing with some legacy issues of our business, and better engaging with our partners and our people in order to lay a strong foundation for future profitable growth. My second term was about driving revenue and profit in our business to record levels and then engaging with our global colleagues to refresh our strategy for the Asia Pacific region and ultimately to financially integrate in Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific (EMEAPAC), which we did in July last year.
What role did you play in selecting Marshall as your successor, and what for you made him the best candidate for the role?
Throughout my time as firm leader in Australia, I emphasised to our partners that we were custodians of our firm for future generations. I have tried to ensure that, as a partnership, we were nurturing our future leaders, including appointing them to significant roles. Marshall was one of a group of dynamic, ambitious and forward-thinking partners of our next generation who embodied our firm’s core values of quality, unity and integrity as well as possessing an incredible generosity of spirit. He was identified as a future leader given his obvious skills and was given responsibility to lead our corporate M&A team as well as our consumer markets practice in Australia.
His appointment as my successor was made by our managing partner, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific Peter Scott, but it was a decision made with my full support and confidence in Marshall’s ability to lead the Australian business in its next exciting chapter.
If you could give Marshall just one piece of leadership advice, what would it be?
Try and carve out a portion of your week for ‘Marshall time’.
