Grant Thornton is an English cricket player.
But in Aruba, get used to that name, Grant Thornton means an assurance, tax advisory and accounting firm.
It is the world’s sixth largest professional services network, providing assurance, tax and advisory services to private and public businesses. The global organization is spread over 135 countries, with over 2,500 firm partners and 42,000 worker bees, all super educated and all aspiring to become partners in the firm.
On Wednesday the familiar PWC, morphed itself into a Grant Thornton, it looked easy, change of logo on the sign, but obviously it was a complex process, intense and crazy, but nicely accomplished by Edsel Lopez and his crew of sixty-five.
Why?
Why the switch, we asked.
PWC is a global giant, and as such compliance is a key word, you have to bring an Awg 10 Censo paper, every time you get off a chair, and a utility bill with your correct name and address every time you open the door. The bureaucracy is killing.
And in order to maintain that global credibility and global clients, the head of the firm had to spend most of his time in the office, complying with the censo papers and photocopies of his utility bill requests.
It robbed him of his joy of life.
He wanted to spend more time with local clients.
Tisa LaSorte, a guest at the gathering where a toast was raised in honor of the newly baptized offices of Grant Thornton Aruba, congratulated the team on its ability to reinvent themselves.
So that’s what happened. They found a way of doing what they are good at, differently, by making a decision to go local, and focus on Aruba.
They are today the largest Grand Thornton in the Caribbean, and definitely the best looking.
Congratulations to partners Hans Ruiter, Edsel Lopez and company, on being brave and visionary. They take their own medicine before giving it to clients.
